Angiogenin Expression during Early Human Placental Development; Association with Blood Vessel Formation

Figure 5

Angiogenin expression in parietal decidua: glandular epithelium and decidual cells. (A) Angiogenin immunoreactivity on frozen sections at week 7.5, using an angiogenin-specific polyclonal antibody; the glandular epithelium showed punctuate signal corresponding to secretory granules (a, arrowhead) and strongly delineated polyhedral decidual cells (c, arrows). No signal was observed on cryosections which reacted with nonspecific rabbit IgG (b). (B) Angiogenin transcripts were detected in the glandular epithelium (a, arrows) and in endothelial cells of small capillaries (a, arrowhead) on frozen sections hybridised with a digoxigenin-labelled angiogenin cDNA probe. Probe binding was detected with an alkaline phosphatase-coupled antibody to digoxigenin and visualised with a colorimetric substrate (NBT/BCIP) (a). No signal was observed in RNase pretreated frozen sections (b). Counterstaining with Mayer’s haematoxylin. Bar, 20 μm. GL, glandular lumen and UGE, uterine glandular epithelium.