Table 2. Evaluation of apoptosis in the small intestine.

Group	Apoptotic cells/crypts*
Untreated°	0.3±0.1
Histamine#	0.3±0.2
Untreated-5 Gy§	1.7±0.3a
Histamine-5 Gyˆ	0.4±0.1b

^*The number of TUNEL positive cells per crypt expressed as mean ±SEM of 10 fields examined.

^°Representative of small intestines from at least eight saline-treated rats.

^#Representative of small intestines from at least eight 0.1 mg/kg.day histamine-treated rats;

^§Representative of small intestines from at least eight saline-treated and 5 Gy-irradiated rats;

^ˆRepresentative of small intestines from at least eight histamine-treated and 5 Gy-irradiated rats.

^aP<0.001 vs untreat-ed,

^bP<0.001 vs untreated-5 Gy (ANOVA and Tukey Post test).