To examine the differential properties of mucous glycoproteins, we produced hypertrophic and metaplastic changes in goblet cells of rat nasal epithelium by intranasal instillation of ovalbumin (OVA) in OVA-sensitized rats, and by intranasal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) instillation. The epithelial mucosubstance was quantitatively examined by alcian blue-periodic acid-Schiff (AB-PAS) and lectin histochemistry. The newly produced mucin after OVA challenge or LPS instillation contained a high amount of sulfomucin and a low amount of neutral glycoprotein: LPS-induced mucin contained more sulfomucin (70.1% of total) and less neutral glycoprotein (8.6%) than OVA-induced mucin (sulfomucin, 33.6%; neutral glycoprotein, 41.8%; p < 0.01). Four of the lectins stained some of the mucosubstance, indicating the presence of galactose-N-acetylgalactosamine, alpha2,3- and alpha2,6-linked sialic acid-galactose, and fucose residues. After LPS instillation, the reactivity was higher for galactose-N-acetylgalactosamine (64.8% of total) and alpha2,3-linked sialic acid-galactose (75.8%) than after saline instillation (3.5 and 19.1%, respectively) or OVA challenge (5.8 and 32.3%; p < 0.05). OVA challenge did not induce the alteration of terminal sugar residues. A 2-fold increase in mucin mRNA (rat Muc5ac) expression was induced after LPS instillation or OVA challenge, compared with animals treated with saline instillation (p < 0.05). These results indicate that mucin mRNA expression (for peptide backbone) increases similarly after LPS instillation or OVA challenge; however, carbohydrate compositions of newly produced mucin are different between the two groups.