STUDIES ON THE PATHOLOGICAL CHANGE OF ACIDIC POLYSACCHARIDES
PART I CHANGE OF ACIDIC POLYSACCHARIDES IN EXPERIMENTAL LIVER CIRRHOSIS OF RAT
1963 年 10 巻 2 号 p. 112-128
詳細
1963 年 10 巻 2 号 p. 112-128
A few biochemical investigations on liver cirrhosis have been reported by several investigators. They studied and discussed the problem mainly from a standpoint of chemical change in collagen protein included in the connective tissue of the cirrhosis.1)2)3)4)5)6)7) On the other hand, no suitable method for determining mucopolysaccharide, an important component of the ground substance of the connective tissue, has ever been established and many questions about mucopolysaccharide remain unsolved.It is now accepted that CSA plays an important role in the formation of connective tissue8)9)10). In the connective tissue formed while a wound is healing11) there appears first metachromasia -as well as PAS- positive substance and then a gradual growth of collagen. Though details of collagen growth in the liver are still unknown, it is possible that hepatic collagen may be produced in a different way from that of another connective tissue1)2)12). To follow up the role AMPS plays when liver cirrhosis occurs or improves is, therefore, of importance. Balasubrahmanyan12) who studied histo-chemically the fate of AMPS appearing in the tissue of liver cirrhosis, pointed out that histochemical observation alone was insufficient and thus purely chemical determination would be necessary in this field of investigation.A method for studying AMPS by measuring its hexosamine content5)6)7) is now widely adopted for the quantitative determination of AMPS, but this method is not the one most suitable since the liver is the only place carrying out the synthesis of glycoprotein13) and glycoprotein molecules contain a great amount of hexosamine14)15). Therefore it can not be expected that there is a proportional ratio inamount between hexosamine and AMPS, and it also is unknown how each fraction of AMPS (HA, CSA, Hep, etc.) correlates with the connective tissue formation.Thus, the author undertook to fractionate AMPS into HA, CSA and Hep by a modified method of Scott's16)17) to examine separately the role of each fraction played in the formation of hepatic connective tissue when the experimental liver cirrhosis was introduced by using hexuronic acid in place of hexosamine as an index of AMPS.
