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Ovarian Influence on the Content of Norepinephrine Transmitter in Guinea Pig and Rat Uterus

Departments of Histology, Obstetrics and Gynecology at Malmo, and Department of Pharmacology, University of Lund Lund, Sweden

Abstract

The ovarian influence on the norepinephrine level in the system of "short" adrenergic neurons innervating the uterine smooth musculature was studied by fluorometric determinations in guinea pigs and rats. Uterine norepinephrine in the guinea pig was reduced by 60% 3 weeks after bilateral oophorectomy, but not 48 hr after the operation which eliminates a simple traumatic denervation. Bilateral ligation of the oviducts did not affect uterine norepinephrine, excluding,a local ovarian influence via this route. On the other hand, uterine norepinephrine was at the control level when determined 3 weeks after re-implantation of the excised ovaries indicating that the short adrenergic neurons were influenced by a blood-born ovarian factor. Unilateral oophorectomy revealed that one intact ovary was sufficient to maintain a control level of uterine norepinephrine level. The lowered norepinephrine content measured 3 weeks after oophorectomy could be brought back to control values after one week of estrogen treatment, suggesting that estrogen is one factor in the ovary which exerts the presumed control function on the norepinephrine transmitter level in the uterine short adrenergic neurons. Accordingly, oophorectomy or estrogen treatment did not alter the norepinephrine content in the rat uterus which seems to receive mainly—if not exclusively—ordinary "long" adrenergic neurons, preferably to vessles. (Endocrinology 94: 1475, 1974)

Received March 2, 1972.