Lectin histochemistry of respiratory mucosa in the Pacific white-sided dolphin.

Tetsuya Shimokawa, Takuya Doihara, Manami Makara, Kyojy Miyawaki, Hiroaki Nabeka, Hiroyuki Wakisaka, Naoto Kobayashi, Seiji Matsuda

Department of Anatomy and Embryology, Ehime University Graduate School of Medicine, To-on, Ehime 791–0295, Japan. tshimo@m.ehime-u.ac.jp

The Journal of veterinary medical science / the Japanese Society of Veterinary Science 2011 Sep

filter terms:

Sugars in the glycocalyx play an important role in the attachment of infectious agents to the respiratory mucosa. We examined the histochemistry of 23 lectins to survey the sugar expression in the glycocalyx of the respiratory mucosa of the Pacific white-sided dolphin, Lagenorhynchus obliquidens. The ciliated and basal cells were positive for all of the lectins studied. SBA, WFA, GSL-II, STL, S-WGA, and PNA staining in the cytoplasm showed different intensities between basal cells and ciliated cells. These results suggest that multiple terminal glycosylation occurs on ciliated and basal cells, such as GalNAc, GlcNAc, NeuNAc, galactose, glucose/mannose, oligosaccharide, and fucose, and that sugar residue expression changes during cell differentiation. The Pacific white-sided dolphin respiratory mucosa might express multiple sugar residues in the glycocalyx, to prevent the attachment and colonisation of infectious agents.

Citation

Tetsuya Shimokawa, Takuya Doihara, Manami Makara, Kyojy Miyawaki, Hiroaki Nabeka, Hiroyuki Wakisaka, Naoto Kobayashi, Seiji Matsuda. Lectin histochemistry of respiratory mucosa in the Pacific white-sided dolphin. The Journal of veterinary medical science / the Japanese Society of Veterinary Science. 2011 Sep;73(9):1233-6