Fig. 1

Body weight, stomach weight, and macroscopic features of stomachs in FVB-CA-AhR and wild-type mice. (a) Body weight of mice. (b-d) Representative macroscopic features of the mouse stomach. b: No lesions were evident in a 28 wk. wild-type (WT) male. c: Cystic structures were evident (arrows) in a 9 wk. FVB-CA-AhR (CA-AhR) male. d: Hemorrhagic lesion (arrow) in a In 28 wk. CA-AhR male. Abbreviations: Ca: cardia, G: glandular part, NG: non-glandular part, and Py: pylorus. (e) Relative weight of the stomach to body weight. (f) Representative macroscopic features of the gastric mucosa on a 28 wk. female. Arrows denotes the limiting ridge (LR). (g) Ultrastructure of the gastric mucosa revealed by scanning electron microscopy. Asterisk: gastric pit, black arrow: mucous secreting cell, and white arrow: fused mucous secreting cells. CA-AhR denotes FVB-CA-AhR. In the graphs, the values are expressed as mean ± SE. Blue and red asterisks denote significant strain differences with wild-type (WT) mice in males and females at the same age, respectively (Mann-Whitney-U test, P < 0.05). Sharp denotes significant sex-related difference in the same strains at the same ages (Mann-Whitney-U test, ###P < 0.001, #P < 0.05). Bars denote 1 cm (b–d), 500 μm (f), 100 μm (g, left panels), and 20 μm (right panels)