Histamine metabolism of the human gastric mucosa–a study on the regional distribution of the amine and enzyme activities

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Abstract
Histamine content, histidine decarboxylase activity and histamine methyl transferase activity of the human gastric mucosa have been studied in healthy subjects. Histamine content was evenly distributed over the gastric mucosa and no significant difference could be observed between the oxyntic and pyloric gland area. A ‘specific’ histidine decarboxylase was found in the human gastric mucosa and the enzyme activity was significantly higher in the corpus compared to the antral mucosa. We found no difference in enzyme activity of the mucosa obtained from three defined areas of the corpus region of the stomach. Histamine methyl transferase activity was of the same magnitude in the corpus as in the antral mucosa. In addition, with regard to histamine methyl transferase activity, we were unable to demonstrate any difference in activity in the mucosal specimens obtained from the defined areas of the stomach. The presented technique to obtain gastric mucosal tissue specimens during routine fibreoptic endoscopy of the stomach, allows studies over gastric mucosal histamine metabolism in health as well as in disease states.