Properties of Gel Mucin of Human Gastric Juice.

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Abstract
Summary “Visible” gel mucin from an-acid human gastric juice has been isolated in an undegraded state by instillation of phosphate buffer into the stomach to reduce total acidity. This material has a relatively high blood group activity; its carbohydrate composition is typical of gel fucomucins from other human epithelial tissues, but differs from them in percentage composition. A smaller variation in the latter occurs among individual gastric gel mucins, which do not appear to be correlated with the blood group of the donor. Samples of mucin from 5 patients with gastrointestinal disease lie within the normal range. The mucins from a large number of individuals, including patients with gastrointestinal disease, dissolved in urea, produced the same, simple pattern on paper electrophoresis; a slow moving negatively charged “C = l component.” This material showed only one peak in the ultra-centrifuge. The reproducibility of the initial C = l electrophoretic pattern from all individuals, and the slight variation in percentage composition suggests that human gastric gel mucin may be composed of an intimate mixture of very closely related mucopolysac-charides which either vary in proportion from individual to individual or from tissue to tissue. A very slow but irreversible change occurs in all mucins in urea solution; a component C = 2 with a greater negative charge appears, accompanied by a fall in sedimentation coefficient; eventually this new component represents the total macromolecular material in solution. Grateful acknowledgement is made to Dr. R. F. Robertson for ultracentrifuge analyses; to Miss M. Evans and Miss D. Lang, for technical assistance.

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