Gastric ulcer animal model establishment

All animals experiments were performed following the guidelines from Animal Ethical and Experimental Committee of the Third Military Medical University, China. Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats weighing between 250 g and 300 g were used. They were given water and standard chow, fed with forage and maintained in clean condition kept at temperature of 22 ± 2°C. The SD rats were fasted and given only water for 24 h before implementing a gastric ulcer model. The rats were fed with absolute ethanol (4 ml/kg) through oral gavage and executed for euthanasia to observe the gastric ulcer formed after administering some ethanol for 2 h [27, 28]. The histological changes of stomach such as congestion, oedema, haemorrhage and necrosis were visualized using haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining.