Morphometric study of rat jejunum enterocyte after L-Arginine and L-NAME prescription

Background: Nitric Oxide (NO) is a very important signaling molecule which acts as a regulator of many physiological processes in many tissues including epithelial cell of gastrointestinal tract. In this study we investigated the effects of L-Arginine as a NO progenitor and L-NAME as a NO inhibitor on epithelial cell number and height of Jejunum in female rats. Materials and methods: 40 female rats were divided into 5 groups, containing 8 rats in each group. Except the control group, the other groups received normal saline (2 ml/kg), L-Arginine (200mg/kg), L-NAME (20mg/kg) and a mixture of two substances for L-Arginine & L-NAME group intraperitoneally for 3 days. 2 weeks later after anesthesia with ether, jejunum was expelled out and after tissue processing and staining with H&E method, the changes were assessed via light microscopy. Cell number and height were evaluated using Image Tools3 Microsoft. Statistical analysis was made by One-Way ANOVA followed by Tukey post hoc test to evaluate the statistical significance between different groups. A value of p< 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: There was a significant increase in the cell number and height of jejunal epithelium in L-Arginine group (P<0.05). Whereas no significant difference was observed between L-NAME, L-Arginine +L-NAME and control, Normal Saline groups. Conclusion: L- Arginine can result in proliferation of Jejunum epithelial cells whereas L-NAME has no effect on these cells.