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Apoptosis of interstitial cells of Cajal, smooth muscle cells, and enteric neurons induced by intestinal ischemia and reperfusion injury in adult guinea pigs

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Abstract

This study aimed at evaluating whether apoptosis of interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC), smooth muscle cells (SMC), and enteric neurons was involved in a guinea pig model of intestinal ischemia and reperfusion injury. The small intestinal segments were resected at either 6 (I60/R6h) and 12 h (I60/R12h) or 7 (I60/R7d) to 14 (I60/R14d) days after 60 min intestinal ischemia in the adult guinea pigs and studied by immunohistochemistry with anti-Kit, 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine (BrdU), α-smooth muscle actin, vimentin, and β-tublin III antibodies. Also, apoptosis was tested by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) method. In the I60/R12h injury, there was a ∼50% decrease of Kit+ cells in cell numbers at the level of myenteric plexus and a number of Kit-/vimentin-positive cells were labeled by TUNEL. Also, a few SMC and enteric neurons were TUNEL positive. The Kit+ ICC recovered to normal and a number of Kit-/BrdU-double-positive cells were observed in the I60/R14d group. Our results indicated that the intestinal I/R injury could lead to apoptosis of ICC, SMC, and enteric neurons which may contribute to the gastrointestinal motility disorders, and proliferation was involved in the recovery of ICC.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in parts by the national key basic research program of China (2007CB512401), grants no. 30800982 from the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Natural Science Foundation Project of CQ CSTC (2008BB5280). We thank Dr. Thomas FitzGibbon for comments and discussion on earlier drafts of the manuscript, and also, we are grateful to Wei Sun and Li-ting Wang (Central laboratory, Third Military Medical University) for their help with confocal laser scanning microscopy.

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We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Feng Mei.

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Feng Mei and Sheng Guo contributed equally to this work.

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Mei, F., Guo, S., He, Yt. et al. Apoptosis of interstitial cells of Cajal, smooth muscle cells, and enteric neurons induced by intestinal ischemia and reperfusion injury in adult guinea pigs. Virchows Arch 454, 401–409 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-009-0739-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-009-0739-5

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