Mast Cell Mucopolysaccharides

Abstract

THERE has been a great deal of controversy in the past few years as to whether mucopolysaccharides other than heparin are present in mast cells. Although the biochemical analysis of normal rat peritoneal mast cells has only revealed heparin1,2, some histochemical evidence strongly suggests that additional mucopolysaccharides may be present in rat mast cells3,4. Recently, the dual staining of mast cell granules in an alcian blue–safranin sequence was described by Worthington and Bailey5. They found, using alcian blue at a low pH with safranin as a counterstain, that even within a single mast cell some granules stain blue and others stain orange-red. It could be postulated that such dual staining arises from the partial removal of an alcian blue staining mucopolysaccharide, which is not heparin as the granules retain their metachromasia.