부산대학교 도서관

1. Expression of the immediate early genes c‐fos, c‐jun and c‐myc in rat stomach in response to feeding and gastric distension was examined by Northern blot analysis and in situ hybridization. 2. Refeeding of fasted rats induced a transient increase in c‐fos mRNA abundance in gastric corpus and antrum that was sixfold within 15 min and declined within 4 h. The response was not mediated by gastrinergic or muscarinic cholinergic mechanisms; it was reduced but not abolished by hexamethonium. No changes in expression of c‐jun, c‐myc or the constitutively expressed protein glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) were observed. 3. In conscious rats prepared with a gastric fistula, gastric distension with nutritive and non‐nutritive solutions at a physiological pressure for 30 min induced expression of c‐fos, c‐jun and c‐myc, but not GAPDH. 4. Messenger RNA encoding c‐fos was localized by in situ hybridization to gastric myenteric neurones of animals that underwent gastric distension, but not of undistended controls. 5. The results suggest that expression of c‐fos in gastric myenteric neurones is an early response to the physiological stretching of the stomach wall that accompanies feeding. With supraphysiological distension, other immediate early genes may be recruited.