The Distribution of Gastrin, Somatostatin and Glucagon Immunoreactive (IR) Cells in Ostrich Stomach During the Pre- and Post-hatching Period

Abstract

Peptides of the gastrointestinal tract play a significant role in the digestive processes and the development of the body; therefore, it is important to have an understanding of location and distribution of gastrin, somatostatin and glucagon immunoreactive (IR) cells in the stomach mucosa of growing birds. For this purpose, 6 embryos and 37 chicks from an ostrich farm in Latvia were used. Tissue samples were collected from the proventriculus - superficial and deep glandular region and from the ventriculus - side wall and pyloric region. The number of cells was determined in 10 mucosal fields of each tissue sample. For statistical analysis, the one-way anova method was used. Gastrin IR cells regarding the stomach mucosa were found only in the pyloric region. Somatostatin IR cells were most densely located in the pyloric region too, but some cells were also discovered in the mucosa of proventriculus and ventriculus. Glucagon IR cells were found in the epithelium of the deep glands of the proventriculus and only some cells of the superficial glands of the proventriculus, and the ventriculus side wall mucosa. Gastrin and somatostatin IR cells were present in a comparatively large quantity in the ostrich chicks' ventriculus - pyloric region yet not long before hatching. They were located deep in the mucosa of pyloric glands, and their number tended to increase with birds advancing in age.

The gut–brain axis in vertebrates: implications for food intake regulation

“…I-cells, L-cells) have been described and well characterised along the mammalian gastrointestinal tract (Gunawardene et al, 2011;Latorre et al, 2016). In birds, several types of EECs (homologous to those in mammals) have been identified and several studies describe their distribution and morphology in the gastrointestinal tract of different species [chick, Gallus gallus domesticus (Aksoy and Cinar, 2009;Arcamone et al, 2014;Hiramatsu, 2020;Neglia et al, 2005;Reid and Dunn, 2018;Salvi et al, 1996); ostrich, Struthio camelus (Duritis et al, 2013); rufous-collared sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis subtorquata (Mendes et al, 2009)]. Compared with mammals and birds, the knowledge of EEC types in other vertebrates is scarce.…”

Chicken Intestinal L Cells and Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Secretion

“…Pirone et al (2011) determined the distribution of the gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP), a mammalian incretin hormone, and the gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), which has regulatory functions in the central nervous system and gastrointestinal tract of mammals. Distribution of various endocrine cells has also been investigated in the gastrointestinal tract of birds such as Passeriformes (Mendes et al, 2009), pheasant (Pirone et al, 2012), and ostrich (Duritis et al, 2013).…”

Morphology of the proventriculus of African ostrich

“…So for many years, scholars have studied the morphology of the proventriculus in different animals (Fang, 2005;He, 2002;Sun, 2012;Shen, 2000;Kadhim, 2011;Li, 2006;Zhang et al, 2016), the researches showed that the morphological characteristics of different animals were different. While on the ostriches, studies mainly focused on its gross anatomy and gland cells (Xu, 2005;Chen, 2013;Duritis et al, 2013;Streicher, 1985). So far there has been seldom systematic report on the morphology of the proventriculus of African ostrich, so the present study was planned.…”