FIGURE 1.

Cellular anatomy of the stomach. The human stomach is composed of three distinct regions: the cardia, the corpus, and the antrum. The gastric cardia resides in the most proximal portion of the human stomach. The corpus contains the oxyntic glands that harbor an isthmal progenitor region and contains the majority of acid-secreting parietal cells and pepsinogen-secreting chief cells. Corpus glands uniquely contain ghrelin-secreting X cells. The antral glands are predominantly mucus secreting glands and uniquely harbor the gastrin expressing G cells. It is important to note that, in the human stomach, the antrum contains a mix of oxyntic and antral glands; however, the oxyntic-type glands in the antrum have significantly fewer chief cells and parietal cells compared with corpus glands (77).