Abstract
ABSTRACTIt is known that the gastrointestinal peptide hormone ghrelin is expressed in human and rodent B lymphocytes, T lymphocytes, monocytes and natural killer cells. However, there are no data about ghrelin expression by mast cells. These facts, as well as the common progenitor cells of mast cells and the above-mentioned immune cells, motivated us to undertake the current work in order to prove that like other granulocytes, rat gastric mast cells are capable of immunohistochemical expression of ghrelin. Gastric wall sections of Wistar rats were studied immunohistochemically for detection of ghrelin and tryptase and histochemically for toluidine blue in order to identify ghrelin-positive mast cells as well as to establish their localization and distribution. Results showed that mast cell granules expressed ghrelin. The ghrelin-positive mast cells were the least numerous as compared to tryptase-positive mast cells and toluidine blue-positive mast cells. Based on the observed expression of ghrelin in granules of mast cells localized in the rat gastric wall, we suggested that this type of cell can be regarded as an important source of ghrelin and suggested that ghrelin may exert different physiological functions, such as regulation of muscular, epithelial and glandular functions.
Highlights
Mast cells (MCs) together with monocytes, basophils, eosinophils and neutrophils originate from the common pluripotent haematopoietic progenitor cells CD34+
Since tryptase is wellknown marker for MCs [52], we performed double immunofluroescent staining for ghrelin with tryptase to confirm that both connective tissue MCs (CTMCs) and mucosal MCs (MMCs) express ghrelin (Figure 1(a,b)
The variations in circulating levels of leptin and ghrelin may significantly influence the production of some cytokines by immune cell populations. We suggested that such reciprocal immunoregulatory effects could exist in the rat stomach that play a role in maintaining MC homeostasis and modulating some pathological processes
Summary
Mast cells (MCs) together with monocytes, basophils, eosinophils and neutrophils originate from the common pluripotent haematopoietic progenitor cells CD34+. MCs circulate in the blood in an immature form before migrating to vascularized tissues, where they undergo final differentiation and maturation influenced by stemcell factor and other cytokines from endothelial cells and fibroblasts. Many studies have characterized the morphology, function and localization of MCs in different organs of humans and animals [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Two MC types depending on different localization sites are identified: connective tissue MCs (CTMCs) and mucosal MCs (MMCs) [6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
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