Fig 1.
Hormonal response to letrozole treatment.
Hormone levels in control animals were normalized to 100, indicated by the dotted line. Estradiol, estrogen conjugates and testosterone are testicular tissue levels. FSH and LH are plasma levels. * indicates significant difference from control levels (p < 0.05) [24].
Table 1.
Coefficient of variation for apical blebbing as a proportion of the total tubule number.
Fig 2.
A 11 week corpus tubule, B 16 week corpus tubule, C 20 week corpus, inset is lower magnification of same tubule, D 40 week corpus, inset is lower magnification of same tubule. Note apical blebbing is evident in both the 20 and 40 week samples (arrowheads); 16 week samples have fewer blebs and this 11 week corpus section has none. L = lumen, S = sperm, scale bars are 5 μm.
Fig 3.
Development of apical blebbing in the caput epididymis (A) and the corpus epididymis (B).
Bars represent least squares means and SEM from 5 animals. Values with different superscripts are different in the analysis of transformed data (p ≤ 0.05). The dashed line represents the linear regression with non-transformed data (p < 0.001).
Fig 4.
Apical blebbing in letrozole treated versus control littermates.
Bars represent least squares means with SEM from 4 and 5 animals in the caput and corpus epidiymis, respectively. Apical blebbing in caput and corpus epididymis were not altered when estrogens were reduced.
Fig 5.
TUNEL labeling of corpus epididymis.
A Apoptotic cells are dark brown and visible near the basement membrane of the epithelium in 16 week corpus epididymis (arrows). B Hematoxylin and eosin stain of the same region as A; apical blebbing is evident in a large segment of the tubule (arrowheads). The apoptotic cells are not numerous enough to account for the apical blebbing seen in B. Scale bars indicate 5 μm.
Fig 6.
Labeling of clear cells in the caput epididymis.
A Cross section of caput epididymis from 16 week boar showing V-ATPase positive cells (arrowheads), L = Lumen. Some background staining is evident. Inset: Positive control mouse caput epididymis with similar staining pattern for V-ATPase positive cells. B Hematoxylin and eosin staining of the same region as A; arrowheads indicate clear cells. Inset: Higher magnification of boxed area including a clear cell. Scale bars indicate 5 μm.