Fig 1.
Cytological aspects of the vaginal lavage of OVX-SHAM, OVX, VCD, and Aged groups.
a, b) OVX-SHAM exhibiting intense neutrophil infiltrate (green arrows) with eventual nucleated epithelial cells (black arrow); c, d) OVX group presenting moderate neutrophil infiltration (green arrows); e, f) VCD presenting cornified squamous epithelial cells (red arrows) amongst the neutrophils; g, h) Aged mice showing intense neutrophil infiltration along with numerous nucleated epithelial cells (black arrows). (Toluidine blue, 40x magnification).
Table 1.
Mean±standard deviation obtained from the quantification of histological parameters.
Fig 2.
Histological aspects of the ovaries collected from each group.
a, b) In NC, primary and secondary follicles are concentrated in the cortical region (black arrows). c, d) OVX-SHAM ovaries presented unilaminar primordial and primary follicles. It is also observed the presence of multilaminar primary follicle (red arrows) and collagen scars (blue asterisk). e, f) VCD ovaries presented no growing ovarian follicles; however, it is possible to note atresia-stage follicle in the peripheral region of the ovarian cortex (yellow arrows) and corpus luteum, which subsequently involutes and is replaced by a collagen fiber scar and becoming the corpus albicans (*). g, h) The ovaries collected from Aged group are mostly constituted by areas of the corpus luteum that become corpus albicans (blue asterisk) (HE; 4x and 40x magnifications).
Fig 3.
Ovary collected from Aged group.
An antral follicle was detected in one of the aged mice (arrow) (HE; 4x and 40x magnifications).
Fig 4.
Quantitative analysis of the area and diameter of the ovaries of the OVX-SHAM, Aged, VCD and OVX groups.
It was detected significantly reduction in the area and diameter of the VCD and Aged ovaries in comparison with the NC’s. OVX-SHAM group was not included in the statistics, but it can be observed that the SHAM procedure does not interfered in the dimensions of the ovaries. The data obtained were analyzed by the One-way ANOVA test followed by Tukey considering p<0.05.