FEULGEN-DNA CYTOFLUOROMETRY AND DISACCHARIDASE ACTIVITY IN INTESTINALIZED GASTRICMUCOSA

Abstract

Intestinal metaplasia in the human gastric mucosa commonly occurs and continues to progress with age. However, it has also been pointed out to have a very close relationship, histologically and epidemiologically, with various diseases of the stomach. It was a purpose of the present study to analyse and to clarify the distinction between the intestinalized gastric mucosa and the small intestinal mucosa. Nuclear DNA content and disaccharidase activity were investigated in various gastric diseases accompanied with intestinalization and normal small bowel. The results are summarized as follows. 1) The mean DNA content of normal stomach was 10.34±1.52 (diploid was equal to 10.0 Fluorescence Unit) and it was a complete mass of diploid. The histograms of normal stomach and normal small bowel were similar to each other. The mean DNA content and the frequency of polyploid over tetraploid in various gastric diseases were; 10.71±2.17, 0 % in gastric polyp; 11.04±2.10, 0% in the atrophic gastritis; 11.59±2.14, 0% in gastric ulcer (healing stage), 12.83±2.83, 4.36% in atypical epitherium (ATP) ; 21.79±9.30, 24.21% in early gastric cancer, and 28.37±13.31, 58.36% in advanced gastric cancer. 2) The nuclear DNA content of the intestinalized gastric mucosa was so-called hyper diploid. In the surrounding intestinalized gastric mucosa of early gastric cancer, polyploid or aneuploid was seen only on the oral side. Disaccharidase activity was essentially in parallel with the histological degree of intestinalization and maltase activity had the best correlation with it. The activity was approximately one-tenth that of the small bowel. There was no significant difference in disaccharidase activity of the intestinalized gastric mucosa between malignant and benign diseases. 3) There was a great difference in the histogram pattern of nuclear DNA content between early and advanced gastric cancer, even in the same types of differential adenocarcinoma histopathologically, i.e. polyploidor aneuploid was found in both. Early cancer, however, had a stem line on the diploid and the variation was much narrower than advanced cancer. The disaccharidase activity was not apparent in either.