Fig. 4

Morphological changes in obese reproductive organs. A H&E stained uterine sections of HFD and ND fed mice. Uterine stroma contained cystic uterine glands in HFD fed mice (arrows) that were dilated relative to those in the ND control. The thickness of endometrium was calculated and indicated increases of uterine thickness in HFD group. The results were reported as mean ± SD (n = 6, * P < 0.05). B H&E stained ovary sections. There were differentially developing follicles including primordial follicles (Yellow arrow indicated), growing follicles (Blue arrow indicated), antral follicles (Black arrow indicated) and atretic follicles/dilated follicular vacuoles (asterisks indicated) in the ovary sections and the numbers of the follicles in different periods were calculated. Quantitative analysis results were presented as mean ± SD (n = 6, *P < 0.05). C H&E stained oviduct sections. The HFD fed mice oviduct structure had a thickened walls and loosely arranged stromal cells in comparison to their ND fed counterpart. The thickness of oviduct was presented as mean ± SD (n = 6, *P < 0.05). Scale bar = 100 μm, 200 μm, respectively