Correlations among three measures of puberty in mice and relationships with estradiol concentration and ovulation

TJ Safranski, WR Lamberso… - Biology of …, 1993 - academic.oup.com
TJ Safranski, WR Lamberso, DH Keisler
Biology of reproduction, 1993academic.oup.com
Correlations among ages and weights at vaginal opening (AVO, WVO), positive vaginal
smear (AVE, WVE), and copulatory plug (AVP, WVP) were determined using 623 mice. Two
additional experiments were conducted to determine association of each with serum
concentrations of estradiol and incidence of ovulation. Female mice were weaned at 21
days and 24 days of age were assigned randomly to mate with males. Mice were checked
daily to determine AVO, AVE, and AVP. Mice were weighted weekly and WVO, WVE, and …
Abstract
Correlations among ages and weights at vaginal opening (AVO, WVO), positive vaginal smear (AVE, WVE), and copulatory plug (AVP, WVP) were determined using 623 mice. Two additional experiments were conducted to determine association of each with serum concentrations of estradiol and incidence of ovulation. Female mice were weaned at 21 days and 24 days of age were assigned randomly to mate with males. Mice were checked daily to determine AVO, AVE, and AVP. Mice were weighted weekly and WVO, WVE, and WVP were obtained by interpolation. Genetic correlations among ages and weights were small and mainly negative. Phenotypic correlations were small to moderate and mainly positive. Genetic correlations among the three measures of age and among the three measures of weight were moderate to high and positive; respective phenotypic correlations were somewhat smaller. In experiment 2, mice were checked daily for the three reproductive measures and bled at vaginal opening (n = 23), positive smear (n = 18), or copulatory plug (n = 19). Serum was assayed for estradiol via radioimmunoassay. No differences were found among the three indicators (p = 0.34). In experiment 3, mice were randomly assigned to be killed after detection of vaginal opening, positive smear, or copulatory plug. Oviducts were removed and flushed with saline to determine presence of ova. A greater (p < 0.05) proportion of mice had ovulated when killed after detection of copulatory plug (20/22) than after positive smear (4/27), and the proportion was greater after positive smear than after vaginal opening (0/14). While correlations among measures of puberty were higher in this study than in previous reports, there is strong evidence to suggest that detection of a copulatory plug is the most accurate indicator of first ovulation in the mouse.
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