Mitmaker B, Bayer I, Baytner S, Gordon P H, Wang E
Department of Surgery, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Eur J Histochem. 1993;37(1):43-51.
Statin, a non-proliferation-specific nuclear antigen, was used here to assess the colonic crypt kinetics of the mucosa bordering a human colon cancer. Mucosal strips adjacent to a colon cancer obtained from operative specimens were immediately cut into five one cm segments and stored in liquid nitrogen. An immunohistological technique using the statin antibody as a nuclear marker was used to determine the labelling indices of the non-cycling compartment at the varying distances. Optical density measurements of the nuclear reaction product served to objectively identify the statin-positive nucleus. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant reduction (P < 0.0001) in the statin-positive labelling index in the entire crypt length for a distance of three cms. The division of the entire crypt into four levels (A, B, C and D) demonstrates that this effect is principally due to the upward extension of the statin-negative cell mass into levels B and C with a corresponding decrease in the labelling index of the statin-positive nuclei in these levels. The in vivo expression of nuclear statin demonstrates its usefulness in accurately determining the size of the non-proliferative compartment in the human colonic crypt adjacent to a colon cancer.
