The distribution of novel intermediate filament proteins defines subpopulations of myenteric neurons in rat intestine

Expression of the Intermediate Filament Nestin in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors and Interstitial Cells of Cajal

“…Because the intercellular space of myenteric ganglion cells is likely to be consistent with the location of glial cells, the immunoreactivity for nestin in this area may reflect the nestin expression of glial cells. Supporting this, Eaker and colleagues 39 showed, by primary culture of the rat myenteric plexus, that glial cells, but not neurons of the myenteric plexus, are capable of expressing nestin. Immunoreactivity for nestin was also observed in cells lying along the fiber bundles of the circular muscle layer.…”

Regional differences in the number of neurons in the myenteric plexus of the guinea pig small intestine and colon: An evaluation of markers used to count neurons

“…The density of immunoreactivity in the neuropil made it difficult to distin-guish cell boundaries in whole mounts of tissue. It has, in any case, been reported that PGP9.5 immunoreactivity is not present in about 20% of the cells of the rat myenteric plexus that express one or both of the neuron-specific intermediate filament markers, peripherin or a-internexin (Eaker and Sallustio, 1994). Since cells that express peripherin or a-internexin are clearly neurons and not glia, PGP9.5 demonstrates only -80% of myenteric neurons.…”

“…Unfortunately, at present, there is no absolutely reliable "gold standard." Even the intermediate filament proteins, peripherin, a-internexin, and the neurofilament triplet are not each expressed by all enteric neurons (Buchan, 1991;Eaker and Sallustio, 1994;Vickers et al, 1991). It is thus necessary to compare at least two methods and to accept the convention that the method that reveals the greatest number of neurons, without producing false positive identifications of nonneuronal cells as neurons, is closer to providing the correct number than a method that reveals a smaller proportion of the neuronal population.…”

“…More recently, the histochemical visualization of NADH diaphorase activity (Gabella, 1987a) and the immunohistochemical demonstration of neural markers have been employed. Markers visualized by immunostaining have included neuron specific enolase (NSE) (Bishop et al, 1985;Scheuermann et al, 19891, neurofilament proteins, c-Myc (Parr and Sharkey, 1994b), Fos-related antigens (FRA) (Parr and Sharkey, 1994b), a neuronal form of ubiquitin (PGP9.5) (Eaker and Sallustio, 1994;Wilkinson et al, 19891, and an antibody (NCB) from a human tumor that recognizes neurons (Young et al, 1993). It is difficult to determine which of these various methods is the most accurate.…”

Prognostic Significance of Nestin Expression in pT1 High-Grade Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma Patients Treated with Intravesical BCG

“…Physiologically, high levels of nestin expression has been described in oligodendroglial cells, ependymocytes, Sertoli cells, hair follicle cells, renal glomerular podocytes, pericytes, odontoblasts and optic nerve (Takano et al, 1996;Yang et al, 2000;Almazan et al, 2001;Lardon et al, 2002;Amoh et al, 2004). Increased nestin expression has also been reported in various tumor cells, especially in central nervous system and gastrointestinal tumors as a poor prognostic factor (Eaker and Sallustio., 1994;Toshiyuki et al, 2011). High expression levels in tumor blood vessels and proliferating endothelial cells in certain tumor types suggest a relationship between tumor angiogenesis and nestin (Kim et al, 2002;Teranishi et al, 2007;Gravdal et al, 2009;Eaton et al, 2010).…”