Comparison of the mucus glycoproteins present in the different layers of rat gastric mucosa.

1. Applying a newly developed separation method, mucus glycoproteins (mucins) present in the different layers of gastric mucosa in rats were studied. 2. Distributions of mucin in the four layers of gastric mucosa expressed as mg mucin hexose per animal are: deep mucosa of corpus, 705; deep mucosa of antrum, 163; surface mucus, 421; mucus gel, 30; and soluble mucus, 173. 3. Relatively low molecular sugar chains, having a small amount of neutral sugars, are rich in the deep corpus and deep antral mucin. 4. Higher molecular size carbohydrate chains, rich in fucose and galactose, are abundant in the surface mucus and mucus gel-derived mucin.