Fig. 3.

Nuclear HNF3β expression was diminished in crypt base cells of ER-deficient Min/+ mice but not in tumors. Representative immunohistochemistry of sectioned proximal colons from female WT and Min/+ mice compared with ERα^+/−Min/+ and ERβ^{− /−}Min/+ mice for HNF3β at ×40 magnification and a graph of the relative number of strongly stained nuclei (A). HNF3β immunohistochemistry performed in parallel showed intense nuclear staining in a large colon tumor (A, bottom). Compared with WT mice, ERα^+/−Min/+, ERβ^{− /−}Min/+ and ER ^+/+Min/+ all had significantly less HNF3β⁺ cells per crypt (47, 50 and 11% reduction, respectively; P < 0.0001) (B). In addition, mice with either ERα^+/−Min/+ or ERβ^{− /−}Min/+ had significantly decreased numbers of HNF3β⁺ cells per crypt than ER ^+/+Min/+ mice (36 and 39% reduction, respectively; P < 0.0001). There was no difference in the number of HNF3β⁺ cells per crypt between ERβ^−/−Min/+ and ERα^+/−Min/+ mice (3% reduction, P = 0.10).