11.   Twenty healthy volunteers completed the questionnaire.

12.   Small gap junctions were observed between gastric surface mucous cells in all healthy volunteers.

13.   Gap junctions in the patients with gastric ulcer were significantly fewer than in the healthy volunteers.

14.   There was no obvious relationship between age and the development of gap junctions in patients with gastric ulcer or in healthy volunteers.

15.   Therefore, we decided to compare gap junctions between gastric surface mucous cells of gastric ulcer patients with those of healthy volunteers.

16.   The study was approved by the ethics committee of our university and informed consent was obtained from all patients and healthy volunteers.

17.   Grossly normal appearing gastric biopsy specimens were taken from healthy volunteers.

18.   In healthy volunteers, small gap junctions were often identified on the lateral plasmalemma of gastric surface mucous cells, mainly at the level of the cell nucleus.

19.   The frequency of gap junctions in the gastric surface mucous cells of the patients with gastric ulcers and of healthy volunteers is shown in Table II.

20.   The patients with gastric ulcer had significantly fewer gap junctions than did the healthy volunteers.