The effect of gastric electrical pacing on the antral interstitial cells of Cajal in rats

Objective To investigate the effect of gastric electrical pacing on interstitial cells of Cajal(ICC) in the antral myenteric plexus in rats.Methods The Wistar rat models with two pairs of electrodes were established by operation,and were divided into two groups,i.e.pacing group(GES,n=8) and control group(n=6).Pacing group was given long pulse GES for 1 hour daily for 20d,while the control was allowed free access to food and water.On the 20th day,the rats in both two groups were sacrificed.The number of ICC in the antral myenteric plexus was counted after immunohistochemical staining for c-Kit.C-kit protein expression was studied by western blot analysis.β-actin,a steadily expressed protein,was used as the internal reference,and the C-kit protein to β-actin protein in the integrated optical density was calculated to represent the relative expression amount of C-kit protein.Results C-kit immunoreactivity in the antral myenteric plexus in GES group was more abundant than that of control(806.421±342.135 vs 448.3±261.467,P0.05).The expressions of C-kit protein were increased in GES group compared with that of control(0.50±0.09 vs 0.29± 0.02,P0.05).Conclusion ICC in the antral myenteric plexus may play an important role in the gastric electrical pacing.