Figure 3
Effect of gestational age on placentomes mass and immunoexpression of placental ghrelin and growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR)-1a. Effect of gestational age on the percentage of cells positively immunostained for ghrelin (a) and GHSR-1a (c) in sheep placentomes collected between days 50 and 135 of gestation (n = 6 at each gestational age). In Fig. 3a the change in total placentome mass is superimposed as the grey line on the graph for ghrelin, and in Fig. 3b the comparison is shown for the 2nd order polynomial lines of best fit with line equations for the gestational change in ghrelin (black text equation, white squares, black line) and total placentomes mass (grey text equation, grey diamonds, grey line) (b). Values with different alphabetical superscripts are statistically significant compared to the peak (ghrelin) and nadir (GHSR-1a) levels at day 80: a versus b = p < 0.05; a versus c = p < 0.01; a versus d = p < 0.001. Significant changes within variables over time are annotated to each figure. Values are means ± S.E.M.