von Boyen et al recently reported a study of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) expression in enteric glia (Gut 2004;53;222–8). Their new data are very interesting and add to our understanding of the possible role of enteric glia in gastrointestinal pathophysiology. However, we must take issue with some of the data presented that show extensive nuclear labelling with S-100 and with the description of the distribution of enteric glia in the colon.

Figure 1 of their paper shows labelling of enteric glia in the rat colon below the epithelial crypts and is thus presumably labelling of cells in the submucosal plexus. In the paper, this layer is described as …