Gastric mucosa

The gastric mucosa is the mucous membrane layer of the stomach which contains the glands and the gastric pits. It is thick and its surface is smooth, soft, and velvety.

In its fresh state, it is of a pinkish tinge at the pyloric end and of a red or reddish-brown color over the rest of its surface. In infancy it is of a brighter hue, the vascular redness being more marked.

It is thin at the cardiac extremity, but thicker toward the pylorus. During the contracted state of the organ it is thrown into numerous plaits or rugae, which, for the most part, have a longitudinal direction, and are most marked toward the pyloric end of the stomach, and along the greater curvature. These folds are entirely obliterated when the organ becomes distended.

When examined with a lens, the inner surface of the mucous membrane presents a peculiar honeycomb appearance from being covered with small shallow depressions or alveoli, of a polygonal or hexagonal form, which vary from 0.12 to 0.25 mm. in diameter. These are the ducts of the gastric glands, and at the bottom of each may be seen one or more minute orifices, the openings of the gland tubes. Gastric glands are simple or branched tubular glands that emerge on the deeper part of the fovea or gastric foveola, inside the gastric areas and outlined by the folds of the mucosa. The glands are made up of muciparous calceiform cells of chief cells of alemorph that produce pepsinogen (an inactive precursor of the pepsin enzyme) and of parietal or delmorph cells, which secrete hydrochloric acid when stimulated by gastrin. This horomone, produced be the G cells, which are distributed inside the gastric mucous, is not the only one secreted by the stomach: the A cells produce glucagon, which mobilizes the hepatic glycogen, and the enterochromaffin cells that produce serotonin, which stimulates the contraction of the smooth muscles.

The surface of the mucous membrane is covered by a single layer of columnar epithelium with occasional goblet cells. This epithelium commences very abruptly at the cardiac orifice, where there is a sudden transition from the stratified epithelium of the esophagus. The epithelial lining of the gland ducts is of the same character and is continuous with the general epithelial lining of the stomach.