Population kinetics of antral gastrin cells in the mouse.

The proliferation of antral gastrin cells has been studied in adult mice by combining their immunoperoxidase identification on semithin Epon sections with radioautography after single or multiple injections of [3H]thymidine. After a single injection, nuclear uptake of [3H]thymidine was observed in 0.25% of the well-differentiated gastrin cells. Ten days after six successive injections of the precursor, the labeling index reached 4.5%. This indicated that the renewal of the gastrin cell population was very slow. The turnover time was roughly estimated at 2 to 4 months. Analysis of the labeling index curves obtained during and after the administration of [3H]thymidine confirmed that the majority of the gastrin cells were renewed through replication of other gastrin cells. However, differentiation of a fraction of this gastrin cell population from "other" cells in the antrum could not be excluded.