Quantitative evaluation of myenteric ganglion cells in normal human left colon: implications for histopathological analysis

The analys is of myent eric neurons is beco ming incre asingly importan t for the assessmen t of enter ic nervous system injury and degener ation occurr ing in motor disor-ders of the gut. Limi ted informat ion is presen tly available on the qua ntitative esti mation of myent eric neurons and glial cells in paraffin-embedded colonic sections; addit ional da ta woul d be u sefu l f or dia gno sti c pu rpos es. In this morp hometric study, we perfor med immunoh istochem istry to count myenteri c neurons and glial cells in pa raffin sections of human colon. Serial cross sections of form alin-fixed p araffin- embed ded full-thicknes s norma l human left colon (n = 10, age-ran ge: 50– 72 years) were exami ned. HuC/ D and S1 00β antigens were found to b e the best marker s for the detection of ne ur on s and gl ial cells, respec tively. Signi fican t correlatio ns were n oted between the numb ers of ne uro ns/g lial ce lls an d t he resp ect ive myenteric gan gli on areas. The se findings suggest that HuC/ D-S100β -immun ostained pa raffin cross sections of human colon can be regard ed as valuab le tools for the quanti tative estimat ion of myenteri c neurons and glia l cells. Based on the presen t method, only a limit ed number of paraffin section s are needed for reliable quan titative assess-ments of myent eric gangli on cell s, thus a llowing fast and simple approac hes in the settings of the histopat hological diagno sis of coloni c mot ility disorders and retr ospective evalua tions of pathol ogical archi val tis sue specimens .