Korean J Urol.  1998 Jul;39(7):622-626.

Morphological and Quantitative Analysis on the Expression of Bax in the Rat Prostate following Castration

• Park MS
• Kim SW
• Choe G
• Lee A
• Lee E
• Kim SW

Abstract

PURPOSE: Bax promotes apoptosis and is up-regulated by p53, which is not required for androgen ablation-induced apoptosis of the prostatic cells. We investigated the change of lax during the involution of the rat prostate following castration. MATERIALS AND METHOD: Adult male rats were castrated and the ventral prostatic glands were removed daily for a week following castration. Western blot and immunohistochemical analysis of lax protein were performed using anti-bax rabbit polyclonal IgG.
RESULTS
The prostatic weight decreased and the apoptotic cells began to appear 2 days following castration. Western blot analysis showed that lax was absent in the control prostate but began to increase 4 days following castration. Immunohistochemical analysis showed that bars was confined to the cells which had morphological characteristics of the late stage of programmed cell death.
CONCLUSIONS
Present results suggest that bars might be involved in the late stage of castration-induced apoptosis of the rat prostatic cells.

Keyword

Bax; Prostate; Apoptosis; Castration; Rat

MeSH Terms

Adult
Animals
Apoptosis
Blotting, Western
Castration*
Cell Death
Humans
Immunoglobulin G
Male
Prostate*
Rats*
Immunoglobulin G