Figure 1.

Anatomy of intestinal epithelium, ENS, and intestinal muscle layers. (A) Cartoon depiction of SI epithelium depicting villi with differentiated cell types and crypts with progenitor cell niche located above the ENS and musculature of intestine. (B) Cartoon depicting of colonic epithelium depicting differentiated cells and progenitors within crypts located above the ENS and musculature of intestine. (A, B) Mucosal glia located within mucosa, intraganglionic glia are located adjacent to neuronal cell bodies within ganglia, and intramuscular glia are located along nerves within muscle layers. Yellow nerves represent intrinsic nerves from submucosal plexus, orange nerves represent intrinsic nerves from myenteric plexus, and blue nerves represent extrinsic innervation into intestine. The legend is located below the graphic. (C) Immunofluorescent image of colonic epithelium. Epithelial cells (DAPI, blue) are located above submucosal and myenteric neurons. Neuronal nuclei marked with HuC/D (green) and neuronal projections marked with PGP9.5 (magenta). Note that the staining at the top of the crypts is background staining. (D) Longitudinal view of myenteric plexus depicting enteric neuron morphology using same markers as described in panel C. Circle represents one ganglia (yellow dashed circle). (C, D) Scale bar = 50 um. ICC, interstitial cells of Cajal.