Fig. 4

Confocal microscopy images of full thickness articular cartilage from the lateral tibial plateau and the medial femoral condyle of female and male itga1-null and wild-type mice (A). Chondrocytes stained red for ER⍺, green for ERβ or secondary only controls. All sections counterstained blue with Hoechst. Scale bar 50 µm. Percent of tibial (B) and femoral (C) chondrocytes stained positively for ER⍺, ERβ, ER⍺ + β, or no receptor as a function of genotype and sex. Note the expression of ER⍺ + β is significantly greater than either receptor alone or no receptor, except in femoral chondrocytes from wild-type females. Data points are means (N = 3 femora, n > 400 cells) ± 95% CI. p < 0.001 (a), p < 0.006 (b), p = 0.002 (c), p = 0.04 (d)