Figure 1.

Impact of rhGH treatment on ovarian reserve and follicle counts in ovaries stained by hematoxylin and eosin. (A) Images of stimulated ovaries from each group are shown. Ovarian volume was significantly larger treated with rhGH for a period of 8 weeks compared with the saline group in aged mice. The difference was not obviously among the young mice groups. (B) Different types of ovarian follicles were observed: preantral follicle (solid, black triangle), antral follicle (solid, black square), atretic follicle (solid black circle). Magnification ×100. Scale bar: 200 µm. Ovarian reserve was not significantly improved after treated with rhGH either in young and aged mice groups because the number of resting preantral follicles was not higher. However, significantly higher number of growing antral follicles treated with medium/high-dose rhGH was observed in aged mice but not in young mice groups. Average number of follicles at various stages of development per slide was shown above: (C) preantral follicle, (D) antral follicle and (E) atretic follicle. ^a,bSignificantly different from control groups (^acompared with wt/young group; ^bcompared with wt/aged group), respectively at P < 0.05 using one-way ANOVA analysis.