Figure 2.

DEX inhibited mouse uterine estrogen responses in a Sult1e1/Est-dependent manner. A, quantitation of estrogen uterotropic bioassay results. Three-week-old wild-type virgin female mice were treated with vehicle or DEX (20 mg/kg) for 3 d before being mock treated or treated with a single dose of E₂ (5 μg/kg). Each group contained five mice. *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01, compared with the vehicle control. B, BrdUrd immunostaining on uterine paraffin sections from mice of different genotypes and drug treatments. All mice were ovariectomized 7 d before estrogen treatment. Mice received a single s.c. injection of vehicle or E₂ (20 mg/kg) 20 h before being sacrificed. Mice were labeled for BrdUrd (60 mg/kg) for 2 h before sacrifice. Percentages of BrdUrd-positive nuclei are quantitated and labeled. When applicable, mice were pretreated with DEX for 3 d before E₂ treatment. The original magnification is 200× for all panels. C, regulation of uterine gene expression as measured by real-time PCR. Pgr, progesterone receptor; Txnip, thioredoxin interacting protein. **, P < 0.01, compared with the wild-type vehicle control. Three mice were used for each group in B and C.