Table 4. Apoptosis detection in seminiferous tubules of Swiss Webster and STOCK Crybb2Phil homozygous mice.
| % of tubules with at least 1 apoptotic cell |
p value |
||
|
Crybb2+ |
Crybb2Phil |
||
| 2 week |
11.5% |
13.3% |
0.30 |
| 3 week |
12.3% |
23.4% |
0.00082 |
| 4 week |
19.3% |
32.2% |
0.015 |
| 18 week | 15.6% | 11.9% | 0.28 |
Apoptosis rates (as scored by TUNEL assay) were measured in tissue sections from postnatal testes and were found to be significantly elevated at 3 and 4 weeks of age as the first mature sperm are being produced. By 18 weeks of age, no significant differences were found in the number of TUNEL positive nuclei between wildtype and mutant testes although mutant testes are morphologically abnormal at this age.