B. Mitmaker et al., TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIPS OF STATIN AND TERMININ EXPRESSION IN VENTRAL LOBE OF RAT PROSTATE FOLLOWING CASTRATION, European journal of histochemistry, 37(4), 1993, pp. 295-301
The purpose of this study was to determine the temporal relationships,
in the rat prostate following castration, the expressions of terminin
, a cytoplasmic marker for senescence, and, statin, a nuclear marker f
or cell quiescence and senescence. The presence of these two proteins
was determined at 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 and 48 hours in the ventral lobe o
f the prostate following castration. Immunofluorescence techniques for
double labelling were used and assessed with confocal microscopy. At
0 hour the mean % labelling index (LI) for terminin was 0 % and 98 % f
or statin. One hour following castration a complete reversal of expres
sion of these two markers occurred indicating that the terminin marker
is expressed at the start of programmed cell death or apoptosis. The
mean % LI for terminin at 1, 2, 4, 8, 24 and 48 hours following castra
tion were 54, 82, 63, 39, 44 and 41 % respectively. The mean % labelli
ng index of statin remained at zero during these time intervals. It is
concluded that following castration, the prostatic ventral lobe exits
from the quiescent phase to reenter cell cycle traverse. This is coup
led by the loss of statin and the expression of the cytoplasmic marker
terminin at the start of programmed cell death prior to the appearanc
e of any histologic features of apoptosis.