TRANSPLACENTAL INFLUENCE OF OESTROGEN UPON OVULATORY MECHANISMS IN THE RAT

in Journal of Endocrinology
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W. N. ADAMS SMITH
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The sterilizing influence of androgens and oestrogens administered to neonatal rats is well known. Direct injection of 20 or 100 μg. testosterone propionate (TP) to the foetus causes anovulatory ovaries, whereas 2·5 mg. TP injected into the pregnant mother does not cause ovarian abnormality in the young and 10 or 25 mg. induce anovulatory ovaries only after a period of apparently normal ovarian function at sexual maturity (Swanson & van der Werff ten Bosch, 1965). A similar delayed sterility follows injection of 5 μg. TP to the neonatal female rat (Swanson & van der Werff ten Bosch, 1964). There has been no report of study of the transplacental influence of administered oestrogen. Possibly only a small proportion of administered androgen crosses the placenta and those investigators who have been unable to find any sterilizing influence in the female young may not have waited long enough beyond the time of sexual maturation.

 

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