INTRODUCTION Atherosclerosis is a systemic disorder. It is a frequent leading cause of coronary artery disease (CAD). Similarly, atherosclerotic vascular alterations could lead to testicular arterial blood flow reduction and impairment of testicular function with age. Inhibin-B has been validated as a valuable serum marker of testicular functions and its correlation with testicular volume was s...

OBJECTIVES To determine the second trimester Down's syndrome screening performance of maternal serum dimeric inhibin A, both alone and in combination with existing serum markers. SETTING A case-control set of serum samples from patients with Down's syndrome (52) and subjects with matched unaffected pregnancies obtained in a previous cohort study before second trimester amniocentesis and karyo...

Premature ovarian failure (POF) is characterized by amenorrhea and high serum levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). POF causes female infertility and represents a substantial women's health risk affecting 1% of women by age 40. Although ovarian autoimmunity has been associated with POF, the identity of ovarian Ags recognized is unknown. In this study, we show that autoimmune-targeted di...

Serum inhibin levels are elevated in postmenopausal women with granulosa and mucinous epithelial tumors of the ovary. In contrast, functional deletion of the inhibin alpha gene in male and female mice results in the development of primary gonadal granulosa/Sertoli cell tumors. The aim of this study was to determine whether inhibin alpha-subunit gene and protein expression are altered in prostat...

The intraovarian function of gonadally produced inhibin and activin has been extensively studied in experimental models for decades, yet their presence and function have been rarely reported in wild rodents. With our seasonal breeding model, the wild ground squirrel, we aimed to investigate the possible roles of these peptides in the seasonal folliculogenesis. Immunohistochemical staining and W...

DNA vaccination has been studied intensively as a potential vaccine technology. We evaluated the effect of an attenuated Salmonella choleraesuis-mediated inhibin DNA vaccine in rats. First, 15 rats were treated with different doses of an inhibin vaccine to evaluate vaccine safety. Next, 30 rats were divided into 3 groups and injected intramuscularly with the inhibin vaccine two (T1) or three ti...

background: the ability of the ovary to respond to exogenous gonadotrophin stimulation and development of several follicles is essential in assisted reproductive technology. neither age and regularity of menses nor follicular phase fsh and estradiol concentrations are reliable predictors of ovarian response. day 3 serum inhibin-b level, during induction ovulation, has been proposed as a predict...

Addition of concentrated rat Sertoli cell conditioned medium (rSCCM) to isolated Leydig cells from immature rats stimulated steroid production more than 13-fold within 4 h. LH-stimulated steroidogenesis was not enhanced by addition of rSCCM. The biological activity of the concentrated rSCCM was higher after incubation of Sertoli cells with FSH, whereas FSH alone did not stimulate steroid produc...

Inhibin production differs in ovaries of Siberian hamsters (Phodopus sungorus) exposed to long days (LD) or short days (SD). We believe that seasonal differences in serum follicle-stimulating hormone contribute to this difference. However, given the profound photoperiodic differences in follicle maturation, serum gonadotropins alone may not account for all of the observed differences in inhibin...

This study was conducted to determine the correlation between reproductive hormones and musth in a male African elephant. Changes in circulating luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone and immunoreactive (ir-) inhibin and the degree of musth were evaluated for 4 years. LH increased 4 weeks before musth began. The highest concentrations of testosterone and ir-i...