Fig. 2

A An image of slides showing the hematoxyline eosin (HE)-stained and immunohistochemical analysis of neurokinin receptor 1 (NK1R)- and β2-adrenergic receptor (ADRB2)-stained cells in the pre-pandemic (upper row) and in-pandemic endometria (lower row) with corresponding positive controls (basal nucleus, Meynert neurons of human brain tissue for NK1R and melanoma for ADRB2) and negative controls. The immunoreactivities of NK1R B and ADRB2 C are shown as measured by the immunoreactive score (IRS) in pre-pandemic and in-pandemic endometria. The procedure of IRS measurement is described in methods. Mann–Whitney U test indicated that while no significance difference in the endometrial expression of NK1R was observed between the groups, ADRB2 expression in the endometria was significantly higher in the in-pandemic group than that in pre-pandemic group (p = 0.015) (C). The boxes represent the interquartile ranges and horizontal lines in the boxes represent median values. Scale bar = 50 μm for each slide