Ovarian follicles of normal NMRI mice and homozygous "nude" mice. 1. Quantitative methodological study in the pubescent "nude" mouse.

It is possible to determine statistically the repartitions of shapes or sizes in a population of particles from the recurrence of shapes or sizes of their outlines in microscopical sections. This method was applied to a population of 1326 follicular profiles randomly sampled from 30 ovaries of pubescent homozygous "Nude" mice. Under experimental conditions, the follicles were not spherical but could be assimilated to prolate ellipsoids with a mean eccentricity of 0.81. The average radius of the follicles taken as a whole was 20.2+/-0.7 (S.E.) mum. From these, the average radius of only the non-primary follicles was 58+/-1.3 (S.E.) mum. The volumetric repartition of the ovarian follicles indicated that 62% of the total follicular mass was made of follicles with a radius greater than 115 mum, although these represent only 2% of the total number of follicles.