Figure 2.

Effects of vitamin D deficiency on sex steroid receptors.

Notes: (A) Western blot analyses of myometrial cell lysates used to prepare proteins screened with antibodies against PRA, PRB, ER-α and β-actin. (B) Protein expression was quantified by densitometry based on the matched actin expression. (C) Immunohistochemistry staining of embedded fixed myometrium isolated from both groups of mice was prepared as described in the “Materials and methods” section and probed specific mouse anti-PRA, anti-PRB and anti-ER-α. (D) The percentage of positive cells stained compared to that of the controls exposed to regular diet with vitamin D is represented in graph bars. Yellow arrows point to the positive nuclei (n = 10, ^*P ≤ 0.05, ^**P ≤ 0.005, ^***P ≤ 0.0005).

Abbreviations: PRA, progesterone receptor A; PRB, progesterone receptor B; ER-α, ER-alpha; Vit, vitamin.