Fig. 6: Postnatal meiosis in the naked mole-rat (NMR) ovary.

a NMR ovary at P1, P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90, showing co-existence of cells positive for the pluripotency marker SOX2 (green) and the meiosis-specific cohesin REC8 (red). DAPI is shown in blue. Green arrows indicate representative SOX2 positive cells and red arrows indicate representative REC8 positive cells. b Immunofluorescence for germ cell marker VASA (green), meiotic cohesin REC8 (red), and DAPI (blue), showing cells in meiotic prophase I on tissue sections of NMR ovaries. c Quantification of REC8/VASA positive cells on ovaries from NMR (P1 (n = 5), P5, P8, P15, P28, and P90 (n = 6 each 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. One-way-ANOVA, adjusting for multiple comparisons using the Bonferroni method, all pairwise comparisons were statistically significant at p < 0.0001, except for age P5 vs P28 (p = 0.16), P5 vs P90 (p = 0.06), P8 vs P15, P28 vs P90, and P28 vs P1 (p > 0.99 for all). d Indirect analysis of synapsis performed by the presence of REC8 (green) and HORMAD1 (red). Presence of HORMAD1 protein indicates places where the homologous chromosomes are asynapsed. e Double strand break formation identified by the presence of the meiotic cohesin REC8 (green) and the marker of DNA damage γH2AX (red) and from leptonema to diplonema. f Immunolocalization of REC8 (green) and MLH1 (red) on chromosome spreads from oocytes at P8. g Quantification of MLH1 foci numbers per nucleus from P8 (n = 300). Each color on the graph refers to the counts from a single animal. Source data are provided as a Source Data File.