Influence of Melatonin on the Proliferative and Apoptotic Responses of the Prostate under Normal and Hyperglycemic Conditions

Figure 3

Proliferation index, evaluated by immunocytochemistry for proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and Western blotting. (a) Short-term control (C1); (b) short-term control treated with MLT (M1); (c) short-term untreated diabetic (D1); (d) short-term diabetic treated with MLT (MD1); (e) long-term control (C2); (f) long-term control treated with MLT (M2); (g) long-term untreated diabetic (D2); (h) long-term diabetic treated with MLT (MD2). e: epithelium; l: lumen; s: stroma; arrow: PCNA-positive cells (brown nuclei). Magnification: 400x, bar = 25 μm. (i) Relative frequency (%) of PCNA-positive cells. (j) Western blotting for PCNA in ventral prostate extracts and the respective densitometry analysis. β-actin was used as internal control loading. Light bars: short-term experiment and dark bars: long-term experiment ( animals/group). Different lowercase letters indicate significant differences between experimental groups C1, M1, D1, and MD1 (parametric data: PCNA protein content; nonparametric data: frequency of PCNA-positive cells), and different capital letters indicate significant differences between groups C2, M2, D2, and MD2 (parametric data: PCNA protein content; nonparametric data: frequency of PCNA-positive cells).

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