Abstract
Gastric antrum ulcerations are common disorders occurring in humans and animals. Such localization of ulcers disturbs the gastric emptying process, which is precisely controlled by the pylorus. Galanin (Gal) and its receptors are commonly accepted to participate in the regulation of inflammatory processes and neuronal plasticity. Their role in the regulation of gastrointestinal motility is also widely described. However, there is lack of data considering antral ulcerations in relation to changes in the expression of Gal and GalR1, GalR2, GalR3 receptors in the pyloric wall tissue and galaninergic intramural innervation of the pylorus. Two groups of pigs were used in the study: healthy gilts and gilts with experimentally induced antral ulcers. By double immunocytochemistry percentages of myenteric and submucosal neurons expressing Gal-immunoreactivity were determined in the pyloric wall tissue and in the population of gastric descending neurons supplying the pyloric sphincter (labelled by retrograde Fast Blue neuronal tracer). The percentage of Gal-immunoreactive neurons increased only in the myenteric plexus of the pyloric wall (from 16.14±2.06% in control to 25.5±2.07% in experimental animals), while no significant differences in other neuronal populations were observed between animals of both groups. Real-Time PCR revealed the increased expression of mRNA encoding Gal and GalR1 receptor in the pyloric wall tissue of the experimental animals, while the expression(s) of GalR2 and GalR3 were not significantly changed. The results obtained suggest the involvement of Gal, GalR1 and galaninergic pyloric myenteric neurons in the response of pyloric wall structures to antral ulcerations.
Highlights
Galanin is a neuropeptide strongly involved in inflammation
Since the present experiment is a part of the wider study, the tissues containing gastric descending neurons supplying the pyloric sphincter and retrogradely traced with Fast Blue (FB) tracer were collected during investigations described in the previous article [25]
The analysis of the pyloric wall (Fig 1—green frame) sections taken from the pigs of subgroup H and double immunostained with antibodies against PGP 9.5 and galanin revealed that most of the myenteric plexus ganglia containing Gal-immunoreactive perikarya were localized deep at different levels of the circular muscle layer (Fig 2a and 2a’)
Summary
Galanin is a neuropeptide strongly involved in inflammation. Changes in the expression of galanin and its receptors are commonly observed in inflammatory diseases of different organs, including the gastrointestinal tract [1]. Antral ulcerations are common disorders occurring in human and animals Such ulcers are localized in the distal part of the stomach which is found close to the pyloric sphincter. Intramural gastric neuronal perikarya supplying the pylorus are localized in the myenteric and submucosal plexuses of the exact pylorus as well as in more proximal parts of the stomach. The latter ones contribute to so-called gastric descending nerve projections [19]
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