Figure 7. Infiltrating monocytes drive the development of gastric metaplasia.

Quantitative RT-PCR of Ccl2 and Cx3cl1 using RNA isolated from the gastric corpus lesser curvature from mice euthanized (A) 3 or 5 days after sham surgery or adrenalectomy, or (B) from adrenalectomized mice euthanized 3 hours after treatment with 1 mg/kg dexamethasone (n ≥ 4 mice/group). (C) Representative tSNE analysis of circulating leukocytes by flow cytometry. (D) Quantitation of circulating monocytes (n ≥ 9 mice/group). (E–F) Immunostaining of stomach sections from Ccr2-KO, Cx3cr1-KO, or WT mice euthanized 5 days after sham surgery or adrenalectomy. Sections were probed for (E) CD68 (macrophages, green) or (F) ATP4B (parietal cells, red), GSII lectin (mucous neck cells, pink), and MIST1 (chief cells, green). Nuclei were labeled with DAPI (blue). Scale bars: 100 μm. (G) Quantitation of the number of CD68⁺ monocytes/macrophages or mature chief cells observed per ×20 field within the lesser curvature (n ≥ 6 mice/group). All data are mean ± SD; P values were determined by 1-way ANOVA with post hoc Tukey’s t test (A–B and G) or by unpaired 2-tailed t test (D). *P ≤ 0.01, **P ≤ 0.001, ***P ≤ 0.0001.