E 5 a’-g’ respectively. There was no significant change for the
E 5 a’-g’ respectively. There was no significant change for the expression of P450c17 between the breeding and nonbreeding seasons (Figure 5c’). However, the expression of P450arom reduced significantly from the breeding to nonbreeding season (Figure 5d’). Similar to the expression pattern of P450c17, the immunoreactivity of AR was not significantly different in the breeding season versus the nonbreeding season (Figure 5e’). Moreover, the immunoreactivities of ERa and ERb were both remarkably reduced from the breeding to nonbreedingLi et al. Journal of Ovarian Research 2012, 5:26 http://www.ovarianresearch.com/content/5/1/Page 4 ofFigure 1 Seasonal changes in the ovary of wild female ground squirrels. a: The histological observation and diagram of the ovary in breeding season. b: The histological observation and diagram of the ovary in nonbreeding season. c: Histological ovarian pattern diagram of the wild ground squirrels during the breeding season. d: Histological ovarian pattern diagram of the wild ground squirrels during the nonbreeding season. e: Seasonal change of the number of primary follicles. f: Seasonal change of the number of secondary follicles. g: Seasonal change of the number of antral, post-antral follicles. h: Seasonal change of the number of corpus luteum. PF, Primary Follicle; SF, Secondary Follicle; AF, Antral Follicle; DF, Dominant Follicle; CL, Corpus Luteum. Data are shown as the mean ?SEM. *: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001. Bars = 200m.Li PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28388412 et al. Journal of Ovarian Research 2012, 5:26 http://www.ovarianresearch.com/content/5/1/Page 5 ofFigure 2 The immunolocalization of P450c17 and P450arom in the ovary of wild female ground squirrels. The immunolocalization of P450c17 (a, b, c) and P450arom (d, e, f) in the ovary of wild female ground squirrels during the breeding and nonbreediang seasons. The breeding season divided into two stages, the large follicle stage (a, d) and the small follicle (b, e). g, AKB-6548 site negative control. IC, interstitial cell; TC, theca cell; GC, granulosa cell. Bars =50m.season (Figure 5 f’ and g’, respectively). Meanwhile, the immunoreactivities of FSHR and LHR decreased observably in the ovaries of the nonbreeding season when compared with the immunoreactivities of FSHR and LHR in the ovaries of the breeding season (Figure 5 a’ and b’, respectively). In addition, the ratio of AR to ERs PubMed ID:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27663262 was shown in Figure 6. Both the ratio of AR to ERa and the ratio of AR to ERb were increased significantly from the breeding to nonbreeding season in the ovaries of wild female ground squirrels.Discussion This was the first study to investigate the immunoreactivities of FSHR, LHR, P450c17, P450arom, AR and ERs in the ovaries of wild ground squirrels. The results of this study demonstrated that there were primary, secondary, antral and dominant follicles in the ovaries of the breeding season, but only preantral follicles existed in the ovaries of the nonbreeding season in wild femaleground squirrels. The protein levels of FSHR, LHR, P450arom and ERs reduced significantly in the nonbreeding season compared to the breeding season. However, the protein levels of P450c17 and AR changed only slightly between the breeding and nonbreeding seasons. These findings suggested that androgen might play an important regulatory role during the follicular development in the ovary of wild female ground squirrels in the transition from the breeding season to nonbreeding season. In this study, the results of histological observa.
