In fine-wool Merino ewes, immunisation against a mixture of steroids was compared with androstenedione immunisation alone and with no treatment to evaluate its long term effectiveness in improving reproductive performance by increasing fecundity. Using 2 prototype multi-steroid vaccines in field trials conducted for 4 consecutive years, gains in lambing percentage were consistently obtained, wi...

We investigated the effect of the pretreatment (sonification or centrifugation) of saliva samples on the concentration of several steroid hormones as measured with highly specific RIA after extraction and chromatography. It appeared that sonification of saliva resulted in significantly higher values for progesterone, cortisone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, testosterone and oestradiol (10 — 49% incre...

Differences in the catalytic activity of the placental and gonadal isozymes of porcine aromatase cytochrome P450 (P450arom) were examined in cell lines exhibiting stable expression of recombinant enzyme. Cell lines were selected that expressed high, but similar, immunodetectable levels of each isozyme based on Western analysis. Aromatase activity varied with growth in culture, decreasing at con...

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are firmly implicated as intra-ovarian regulators of follicle development and steroidogenesis. Here we report a microarray analysis showing that treatment of cultured bovine theca cells (TC) with BMP6 significantly (>twofold; P < 0.01) up- or down-regulated expression of 445 genes. Insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3) was the most heavily down-regulated gene (-43-fo...

Studies from this laboratory (l-3) and others (4, 5) have indicated that testicular extracts are capable of oxidizing progesterone to testosterone and acetic acid. Preliminary data from this laboratory indicated that the enzymatic activity was associated with the microsomes, that reduced triphosphopyridine nucleotide (TPNH’) and oxygen were essential for the reactions, and, further, that cyanid...

BACKGROUND 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 3 (17βHSD3) deficiency is a rare cause of disorder of sex development (DSD) due to impaired conversion of androstenedione to testosterone. Traditionally, the diagnosis was determined by βHCG-stimulated ratios of testosterone:androstenedione < 0.8. CASE PRESENTATION An otherwise phenotypically female infant presented with bilateral inguinal mass...

In order to assess whether intratesticular hormone content may be helpful for prediction of successful conception in men with fertility problems, five sex steroids, testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, androstenedione, estradiol and, for the first time epitestosterone, were measured in testicular tissue obtained by surgical retrieval from total 84 men. The group consisted of non-obstructive azoos...

Concentrations of delta 4 androstenedione, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone were measured in the post-nuclear supernatant of the dog epididymis. In addition, they were measured in the efferent ducts and the testis. From the efferent ducts to the corpus there was a significant decrease in testosterone and delta 4 androstenedione concentrations. On the contrary, the concentration of dihydrote...