Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Medicine (Sep 2021)
Relationship between plasma concentrations of estradiol-17β and progesterone and the distribution of epithelial and inflammatory cells in the external opening of the river buffaloes’ uterine cervix during the gestational period
Abstract
Changes in the distribution of the epithelial and inflammatory cells in the external opening of the uterine cervix in river buffaloes at three different occasions during the gestation period were investi-gated by light microscopic evaluation of mucus smears prepared by wet swab sampling and Giemsa-stained. Forty five pregnant river buffaloes that were in the first (n=15), second (n=15) and third (n=15) approximately equal parts of their gestation period were sampled twice concurrently by indi-vidual wet swabs from the external opening of the uterine cervix. Five smears were prepared from each sample. Immediately after mucus sampling, blood samples were obtained from the jugular vein of each animal, centrifuged immediately and stored at 20 oC to assay the plasma levels of estradiol-17β and progesterone. The results showed that changes in the percentage of the vacuolated and non-vacuolated epithelial cells, lymphocytes, eosinophils, and basophils were not statistically significant between the groups, which suggests that as the pregnancy progressed, changes in the blood levels of estradiol-17β and progesterone had little or no effect on the distribution of these cells in the region, but changes in the percentage of neutrophils were statistically significant between the groups. It was also found that changes in the percentage of macrophages between the second and third trimesters of the gestation period were not significant, but the difference between the first and the other trimesters was statistically significant. It was concluded that the percentages of neutrophils and macrophages increase significantly as the plasma concentrations of progesterone decrease during the gestation.
Keywords
