Table 2. Relative gene expression in vaginal epithelium of ovariectomized injured rats treated with vaginal estrogen or placebo.

Data represent mean ± SEM of 3 data points, each representing pools of 3 different rats except uninjured controls in which n = 4 representing pools of 3 different rats per pool. All data represent 3 weeks.

Gene	Uninjured Control	Injured Placebo	Injured Estrogen	p value*
Growth Factors
TGFα	1.00 ± 0.03^a	0.40 ± 0.07^a,b	1.07 ± 0.12^b	<0.001
EGF	1.00 ± 0.02	1.20 ± 0.20	1.68 ± 0.43	0.433
IGF-1	1.00 ± 0.13^a	0.97 ± 0.18^b	0.41 ± 0.10^a,b	0.004
TGFβ1	1.00 ± 0.01^a,b	0.31 ± 0.03^a	0.23 ± 0.06^b	<0.001
VEGFa	1.00 ± 0.11^a	0.49 ± 0.03^a,b	2.5 ± 0.61^b	0.001
Basement membrane
Laminin β3	1.00 ± 0.10^a	0.89 ± 0.06^b	2.32 ± 0.14^a,b	0.002
Inflammatory modulators
CXCL1	1.00 ± 0.12	0.87 ± 0.26	4.97 ± 1.75	0.183
IL1β	1.00 ± 0.32	0.33 ± 0.01	0.85 ± 0.25	0.303
E-Cadherin	1.00 ± 0.03^a,b	0.30 ± 0.08^a	0.40 ± 0.11^b	<0.001
Adaptive immune responses
CCL20	1.00 ± 0.17	1.07 ± 0.30	0.35 ± 0.06	0.188
CCL28	1.00 ± 0.06^a,b	0.53 ± 0.05^b,c	0.26 ± 0.07^a,c	<0.001
Tight junctions, barrier function
OCLN	1.00 ± 0.05^a	0.60 ± 0.04^a,b	1.21 ± 0.15^b	0.002
CLDN1	1.00 ± 0.10	0.70 ± 0.14	0.83 ± 0.06	0.161
Protease inhibitor
SLPI	1.00 ± 0.15^a	1.84 ± 0.28	8.64 ± 2.51^a	0.001
Hormone receptor
ERa	1.00 ± 0.04^a,b	0.44 ± 0.06^a	0.29 ± 0.05^b	<0.001

P value represents ANOVA with multiple comparisons. For those found to be statistically significant (p<0.05), multiple comparisons were made with Dunn’s or Holm-Sidak method as appropriate. Matching superscripts denote significance between groups.