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The picture shows a histological section from an endobronchial biopsy from a subject with asthma. The section (600x magnification) has been stained sequentially with alcian blue, periodic acid-Schiff reaction, and hematoxylin. Mucin stores in epithelial goblet cells appear as a mixture of blue and purple staining. The goblet cell metaplasia shown here is a characteristic of asthma and is accompanied by selective upregulation of a sodium potassium co-transporter (NKCC1) on basolateral goblet cell membranes (For details, see Dolganov et al., pp. 1473–1483.
