Fig. 5.

Western blot analysis of esophageal mucosa and muscle for P2X₃ receptor protein expression in reflux esophagitis (7D-ligated) and sham-operated rats. β-actin immunostaining was used as a reference protein. a P2X₃ was expressed as a 64 kDa protein both in esophageal mucosa and muscle extracts. Preabsorption of P2X₃ antibody with immunogen (10 µM) completely eliminated the immunoreactivity in the mucosa and 90% in the muscle preparation. b Histograms of relative P2X₃ band density in the experimental and control groups were normalized to β-actin staining. The results were expressed as mean ± SD of three experiments