Parietal cell mass and distribution in stomachs of Wistar rats

¹ Fels Research Institute, Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Parietal cell mass (PCM) and distribution of parietal cells were studied by the technique of Cox and Barnes (Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 60: 118, 1945) except that mucosal sections were excised perpendicular to the antral margins rather than parallel to the curvatures. Highly significant correlations were found between PCM with age (r = 0.9522) and with body weight (r = 0.9319) in animals between 30 and 112 days of age. Each of the factors determining PCM—parietal cell count per unit area, surface area, glandular mucosal thickness and volume—was closely associated with age with its own specific pattern which, in all cases, could be accurately expressed by parabolic regressions. Distribution of parietal cells with respect to area or volume was not uniform or subject only to random variation, as reported by others; but cell counts were found to be a second degree polynomial function of the distance from antral margin.