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Administration of Antiserum to Ovine FSH in the Female Rat: Failure to Influence Immediate Events of Cycle¹

Division of Biological Laboratories, Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago, Illinois 60612, and Department of Anatomy, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York 10032

Abstract

We have previously shown that antiserum to ovine LH can block ovulation and/or estrogen secretion when administered at appropriate times during the rat estrous cycle (Endocrinology 86: 1420, 1970; 89: 161, 1971). In the present study, an antiserum to ovine FSH was shown to prevent the effects of rat pituitary extract in the Steelman—Pohley assay. This antiserum, when administered to cycling rats, did not block ovulation or estrogen secretion during the cycle in which it was administered. After a single injection at proestrus, it reduced ovarian and uterine weights at the time of autopsy at the second metestrus. Following single or multiple injections of the antiserum there was some histological evidence that follicles in the cycle (s) after injection did not ovulate normally. Multiple injections of the antiserum did not block puberty in female rats when administered starting on day 26. The results suggest the following possibilities: (1) the response in the Steelman—Pohley assay does not reflect the same active site(s) on the FSH molecule as those which are necessary for at least some functions in the adult ovary; (2) FSH is necessary only at some time in the early history of a given group of follicles and is dispensable for their function after that time; (3) circulating endogenously secreted rodent FSH is carried in such a form as to impede antigen—antibody combination; (4) FSH can act even when carried in an antigen—antibody complex. At present, the authors favor interpretation #2. (Endocrinology 92: 1165, 1973)

Footnotes

¹ This work was supported in part by PHS Research Grants HD–0440 and HD–04471 and by T–296 from the American Cancer Society, Inc., and DRG–932 from the Damon Runyan Memorial Fund. A preliminary report of some of the data was presented at the 53rd Meeting of the Endocrine Society, 1971 (Abstract No. 73).

Received May 26, 1972.