Clinical Study Mucosal Barrier in Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease

Creative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Background. The mucus layer in the gastrointestinal tract plays important role in host innate defense, regulation of secretion, and absorption processes, maintaining colonization resistance, which composes the integrity of protective mucus barrier in the large intestine. Investigations of mucin expression in the colonmucosa can improve the understanding of protective function of mucosal barrier in ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). Materials and Methods. 77 patients with UC and CD were examined. Histological analysis of colonmucosa was done by standardmethod (haematoxylin-eosin, alcian blue at pH 1.0 and 2.5 to determine sulfated and nonsulfated glycosaminoglycans and glycoproteins, and goblet cells). To characterize the mucus production the PAS-reactionwas performed. Immunohistochemistrywas performed usingmonoclonalmouse antibodies raised againstMUC2,MUC3, MUC4, and TFF3 (USBiological, USA). Results. The moderate expression of MUC2 and MUC3 (50.0 % and 32.1%