2.5. Jejunal morphology and histology analysis
The fixed intestinal samples were dehydrated in ascending series of
ethanol, cleared in xylene and embedded in paraffin. The samples were
sectioned at a 5 μm thickness, installed on glass slides and stained with
hematoxylin and eosin for a light microscopy examination. A total of 10
well-oriented, intact villus units height and crypt depth measurements
were selected and measured for each intestinal cross-section, and the
means of these measurements were calculated for each sample. The
intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) and goblet cells (GCs) weremorphometrically
identified and measured per 100 villus epithelial cells for
each cross section.