Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy and the five-year survival rate is only 35% after diagnosis. Epithelial ovarian cancer is a highly metastatic disease characterized by widespread peritoneal dissemination and ascites. The death incidences from ovarian cancer could be significantly lowered by developing new methods for the early diagnosis and treatment of this fatal diseas...

By using CsCl-density-gradient ultracentrifugation, two high-Mr mucin species were isolated from human whole saliva, having buoyant densities in 0.2 M-guanidinium chloride of approx. 1.56 g/ml (pool IA) and 1.48 g/ml (pool IIA). Analytical density-gradient centrifugation of submandibular, sublingual, labial and palatal saliva, followed by immunochemical analysis with anti-mucin monoclonal antib...

Over the recent decades, there has been a number of studies investigating the role of mucins in the pathogenesis of various cancers such as breast, lung, ovarian, gastrointestinal and pancreatic malignancies. Since then, it has been discovered that mucins play a critical role in tumorigenesis as they can mediate cell proliferation, metastasis and resistance to chemotherapy. Thus, mucins have be...

Gastric epithelium is protected by a mucus layer rich in MUC5AC and MUC6 mucins synthesised by the superficial epithelium and the glands, respectively. These cell populations also express specific fucosyltransferases that determine the glycosylation pattern of these gastric mucins. The maintenance of the structure and properties of the gastric mucus has been related to the degree of glycosylati...

Glycosylation is one of the most abundant post-translational modifications that occur within the cell. Under normal physiological conditions, O-linked glycosylation of extracellular proteins is critical for both structure and function. During the progression of cancer, however, the expression of aberrant and truncated glycans is commonly observed. Mucins are high molecular weight glycoproteins ...

A thick coat of mucin-like glycoproteins covers the surface of Trypanosoma cruzi and plays a crucial role in parasite protection and infectivity and host immunomodulation. The appealing candidate genes coding for the mucins of the mammal-dwelling stages define a heterogeneous family termed TcMUC, which comprises up to 700 members, thus precluding a genetic approach to address the protein core i...

Tracheobronchial mucin samples from control and cystic fibrosis patients were purified by gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-1000 and by density gradient centrifugation. Normal secretions contained high molecular weight (approximately 10(7] mucins, whereas the cystic fibrosis secretions contained relatively small amounts of high molecular weight mucin together with larger quantities o...

--The lubricating properties of commercially available mucins originating from different animal organs, namely bovine submaxillary mucin (BSM) and porcine gastric mucin (PGM), have been characterized at polymeric surfaces for biomedical applications. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and pin-on-disk tribometry have been employed for tribological studies at nanoscale and macroscale contacts, respect...