The estrogen-injected female mouse: new insight into the etiology of PCOS

Table 2 The effect of injecting female B6A mice with various steroid hormones at 5–7 days of age on thymus and spleen weights and thymocyte and splenocyte numbers at 12 days of age.

Steroid	Thymus Wt (mg)	Spleen Wt (mg)	Thymocytes (10⁶)	Splenocyes (10⁶)
Vehicle [5]^a	50.5 ± 3.2^b	40.6 ± 3.6	83.0 ± 6.1	33.2 ± 5.9
Progesterone [4]	48.8 ± 3.0	37.4 ± 0.6	73.5 ± 18.1	33.5 ± 1.3
Testosterone [9]	47.8 ± 2.6	46.0 ± 3.6	143.2 ± 25.5	89.2 ± 23.1
Cortisol [13]	26.5 ± 3.4**	27.9 ± 2.0*	52.3 ± 9.2	19.2 ± 3.2
Estradiol-17β [8]	18.5 ± 3.2***	14.6 ± 1.8***	33.6 ± 12.0*	5.8 ± 1.1***

Beginning at 5 days of age, mice were given three daily sc injections of 10 μl sesame oil: ethanol (9:1; v:v) {vehicle}, or vehicle containing 20 μg of the indicated steroid hormones. At 12 days of age they were killed, thymuses and spleens removed and weighed, and thymocytes and splenocytes visualized under a light microscope using the Trypan Blue exclusion test, and counted with a hemocytometer.
^aNumber of animals in each group.
^bMean ± S.E.M.
*Significant @ p < .025. **Significant @ p < .005. ***Significant @ p < .001.

ISSN: 1477-7827