Figure 1.

The expression of FOS and its binding partners, JUN, JUNB, and JUND, in periovulatory follicles after hCG administration. Dominant follicles were retrieved from the ovaries of women undergoing laparoscopic tubal sterilization before the LH surge or at defined h after recombinant hCG administration and divided into three phases: preovulatory (Pre, n = 6), early ovulatory (EO, n = 5), and late-ovulatory (LO, n = 6) phases as described in Materials and Methods. (A) The levels of mRNA for each transcript were measured by quantitative PCR in granulosa cells and normalized to the levels of GAPDH mRNA in each sample. The levels of transcript were presented as fold change to Pre levels. Bars with no common superscripts are significantly different (P < 0.05). (B) Paraffin-embedded sections of dominant follicles (n = 2/Pre, n = 4/EO, n = 4/LO) were subjected to immunohistochemical analyses to detect FOS, JUN, JUNB, and JUND. Pink/purple staining represents positive signals for these proteins. All sections were lightly stained with hematoxylin (blue) for nuclear staining. Gc, granulosa cells; Tc, theca cells. Scale bar, 100 µm for all the images. The relative abundance of immunoreactive signals for these proteins ranked by the qualitative scoring system is presented in Supplemental Table 4. A representative negative control section treated with rabbit IgG is presented in Supplemental Fig. 2.