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Re-examination of P-PTEN staining patterns in the intestinal crypt

Nature Genetics volume 37, pages 1016–1017 (2005)Cite this article

A Correspondence to this article was published on 01 October 2005

To the editor:

In their recent paper describing polyp formation resulting from conditional inactivation of Bmpr1a in mice, He et al.1 introduce the use of an antibody specific for phosphorylated PTEN (P-PTEN) as an intestinal stem cell (ISC) marker. They noted that “P-PTEN was present specifically in ISCs”, defined as cells retaining 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) located in cell positions 4 or 5 in the crypt base, and then used such P-PTEN expression to quantify ISCs in their experiments. This is important because no specific ISC markers were previously available. We write to caution that many of the cells illustrated in their paper are more likely to be enteroendocrine cells, postmitotic hormone-secreting cells frequently found in the crypt base, than stem cells. For example, the cells in their Figure 3j have prominent round nuclei with an accumulation of basal cytoplasm, characteristics of enteroendocrine cells.

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Figure 1: Fluorescent images showing that P-PTEN-positive cells (arrows) costain with antibody to ChrA and are not restricted to the crypt base.

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  1. Department of Medicine, Clinical Science Division, Medical Science Building, Room 6334, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 1A8, Ontario, Canada

    Matthew Bjerknes & Hazel Cheng

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  1. Matthew Bjerknes
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  2. Hazel Cheng
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Correspondence to Matthew Bjerknes.

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Bjerknes, M., Cheng, H. Re-examination of P-PTEN staining patterns in the intestinal crypt. Nat Genet 37, 1016–1017 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng1005-1016

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