Histochemical Observations on the Mucin of Epithelial Cells in Pathological Human Gallbladders

Hee Lai Lee, Soon Hoi Kim, Jing Sil Cho, Ok Kyung Kim

Corresponding author: Ok-Kyung Kim. Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1978. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

The present study was performed to evaluate the histochemical properties of epithelial mucins in diseased gallbladders.

18 gallbladder specimens were selected in which metaplastic goblet cells had been observed. Of the specimens 9 were gallstone and 9 cholecystitis.

For microscopic examination, tissues were sectioned at a thickness 5µm, and were stained with following histochemical techniques: Alcian blue at pH 1.0 or 2.5 and periodic acid Schiff's reaction (PAS).

Observed results were as follows:

1) In ordinary gallbladder the epithelial cells showed a predominance of sulphated mucosubstance.

2) In many case of cholelithiasis a typical goblet-typed epithelial cells were found in the top of folds. In large goblet cell area the relative proportion of sulphated acid mucin decreased and correspondingly non-sulphated acid mucin increased.

3) In the case of cholecystitis the intracellular mucin of high columnar epithelium predominated in the deep area of folds.

4) The neutral mucin predominated in the surface epithelium of gallbladder under pathological condition.