Morphological Study on the Gastric Mucosa in Diabetes Mellitus Rats Induced by Streptozotocin

Abstract

To clarify the pathogenesis of vulnerability to acute gastric mucosal lesion (AGML) in diabetes mellitus (DM), we investigated histopathologically the gastric mucosa of the fundic gland in streptozotocin-induced DM rats. The length of the mucosa and the thickness of the surface epithelial cell (SEC) layer were measured, and the number of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) positive cells was counted. As results, compared with control rats, the ratio of the length of SEC layer to that of mucosa, and the number of PCNA positive cells were significantly decreased in DM rats, whereas the length of the mucosa tended to extend in DM rats. Consequently, it is considered that attenuation of mucosal barrier in the SEC layer can be closely associated with susceptibility to occurrence of AGML in DM.