Fig. 2: Presence of pluripotency and primordial germ cell markers in postnatal naked mole-rat (NMR) ovaries.

a NMR ovary sections stained with the pluripotency marker SOX2 (red), VASA (green), and DAPI (blue). White arrows indicate representative SOX2 positive cells. b Quantification of SOX2 positive cells at P1, P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90 (n = 6 per group). In all the graphs, the box edges represent 25th and 75th percentiles, the horizontal line inside the box represents the median, and the pink ‘+‘ represents the mean. In one-way-ANOVA, adjusting for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method, all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant at p < 0.0001, except for P1 vs P8 (p = 0.18), P15 vs P28, P28 vs P90, and P15 vs P90 (all p > 0.99). c NMR ovary sections stained with the pluripotency marker OCT4 (red), VASA (green), and DAPI (blue). White arrows indicate representative SOX2-positive cells. d Quantification of VASA+ OCT4+ positive cells at P1, P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90 (n = 3 per group), and all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant at p < 0.0001, except for P5 vs P8 (p = 0.10), P1 vs. P8, P15 vs. P28, P15 vs. P90, and P28 vs P90 (all p > 0.99). e Detection of the PGC marker BLIMP1+ (red) and VASA (green) on the NMR ovary. f Quantification of VASA+ BLIMP1+ cells at P1, P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90 (n = 3 per group), and all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant at p < 0.0001, except for P1 vs. P5, P5 vs. P8, P15 vs. P28, P15 vs. P90 and P28 vs. P90 (all p > 0.99). g Co-staining of the pluripotency markers SOX2+ (red) and OCT4+ (green) on the NMR ovary. h Quantification of SOX2+ OCT4+ cells at P1, P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90 (n = 3 per group), and all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant at p < 0.0001, except for P1 vs. P5, P1 vs. P8, P5 vs. P8, and for those among ages P15, P28, and P90 (all p > 0.99).