Histomorphometric and immunohistochemistry studies of the corpus luteum of bedouin goats reared in arid environment

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the histomorphometry and the immunohistochemistry of the Corpus luteum (CL) of Bedouin goat living in arid zones. Pregnant and non-pregnant females ovaries were collected from slaughterhouses, weighed, measured and then fixed in buffered formalin for histological, histochemical and immunolocalization of Ki-67, active caspase-3, aromatase and progesterone receptor. Our results showed that CL affected significantly the ovarian weight (P<0.001). The CL (P<0.05) and the large luteal cells (P<0.001) diameters were higher in pregnant compared to the non-pregnant CL. In the non-pregnant CL, the immunostaining of Ki-67 was only observed in the small luteal cell"s nuclei whereas the active caspase-3 was detected in the large and small luteal cells cytoplasm. The aromatase was also detected in the CL and capsule cells cytoplasm, in contrast the progesterone receptor was observed in all luteal cell"s cytoplasm and in some luteal cell nuclei. We conclude that in the Bedouin goat, the CL affects the ovarian biometric parameters. The development and luteolysis of non-pregnant CL seem to be under the balance between luteotropic and luteolytic markers, with luteolysis occurring by apoptosis via the caspase-3 pathway.

Keywords

• active caspase-3
• aromatase
• corpus luteum
• goat
• histomorphometry
• immunohistochemistry
• progesterone receptor