Fig. 1

Experimental design. Four separate mouse experiments were performed to examine the effect of G-CSF on steady state spermatogenesis and spermatogenic recovery after busulfan treatment. In all experiments, 5-week old C57BL/6 males were treated with G-CSF or vehicle over the course of a 7 day period (green or open triangles, respectively) and given one injection of DMSO or Busulfan on day 3. The four experiments differed in the G-CSF dose, G-CSF administration duration and schedule relative to busulfan treatment, as well as the time to analysis1. Animals in Experiments 1–3 were euthanized after 10–19 weeks and effects on spermatogenesis were assessed by comparing testis weights, testis histology and cauda epididymal sperm counts (except for experiment 1). Note: mouse sperm image from MethBank: a Database of DNA Methylome Programming (http://www.dnamethylome.org/). Animals in Experiment 4 (from [17]) were euthanized 24 h following the last treatment (on day 8) and used for immunofluorescent analysis of Ki67 labeling index of PLZF+ spermatogonia