Regional Distribution of Interstitial Cells of Cajal (ICC) in Human Stomach

We elucidated the distribution of interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) in human stomach, using cryosection and c-Kit immunohistochemistry to identify c-Kit positive ICC Before c-Kit staining, we routinely used hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining to identify every structure of human stomach, from mucosa to longitudinal muscle HE staining revealed that the fundus greater curvature (GC) had prominent oblique muscle layer, and c-Kit immunostaining c-Kit positive ICC cells were found to have typical morphology of dense fusiform cell body with multiple processes protruding from the central cell body In particular, we could observe dense processes and ramifications of ICC in myenteric area and longitudinal muscle layer of corpus GC Interestingly, c-Kit positive ICC-like cells which had morphology very similar to ICC were found in gastric mucosa We could not find any significant difference in the distribution of ICC between fundus and corpus, except for submucosa where the density of ICC was much higher in gastric fundus than corpus Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the density of ICC between each area of fundus and corpus, except for muscularis mucosa Finally, we also found similar distribution of ICC in normal and cancerous tissue obtained from a patient who underwent pancreotomy and gastrectomy In conclusion, ICC was found ubiquitously in human stomach and the density of ICC was significantly lower in the muscularis mucosa of both fundus/corpus and higher in the submucosa of gastric fundus than corpus