Abstract
Experiments on the effect of combined injections of various anterior pituitary or pituitary-like hormones on the weight and changes in immature rat ovaries have given suggestive results. Fevold, Hisaw, and Leonard 1 have shown that combinations of fractions of the anterior lobe of sheep produced effects which suggested the possibility of 2 sex hormones, a follicular stimulator and a luteinizer. Leonard 2 showed that a growth hormone (phyone, van Dyke) when injected simultaneously with a sex stimulating extract of the sheep anterior pituitary, inhibited the action of the latter. More recently, Evans, Meyer and Simpson 3 have combined injections of prolan with sex-free growth hormone and also with growths-free sex hormone and have obtained activation only of their growth hormone with the production of ovaries greater than can be predicted by the additive effects of either hormone injected separately. Prolan did not react on their growth-free sex hormone which led them to conclude they were dealing with a prohormone (growth hormone) and an activator (prolan).
We here present data concerning the effect of single and combined injections of prolan with the sex hypophyseal hormone of sheep glands prepared by the pyridine method. 1 Only the water soluble fraction of the pyridine extract was used. The prolan was prepared by the alcoholic precipitation method as described by Zondek. In a litter of at least 3 immature rats between the ages of 21-24 days, one received prolan in doses sufficient to produce at least several corpora lutea in the ovaries in 5 days, one received a known amount of the hypophyseal extract, and the other a combination of the two.
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