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Unité Biologie du Développement et de la Reproduction, Département de Physiologie Animale, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), 78352 Jouy-en-Josas cedex, France
¹ Laboratoire de Biochimie Médicale, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Necker, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), 75743 Paris cedex 15, France

(Requests for offprints should be addressed to K H Al-Gubory; Email: kais.algubory{at}jouy.inra.fr)

Ovine placental lactogen (oPL) is produced by the conceptus trophectoderm and is secreted into both the maternal and fetal circulations. The present study was designed to examine in vivo the luteotropic effect of recombinant oPL (roPL), as determined by monitoring progesterone concentration and cycle length (experiment 1), and the antioxidative and antiapoptotic effects of roPL, as determined respectively by monitoring antioxidant enzymatic activity and apoptosis in the corpus luteum (CL) of cyclic ewes (experiment 2). We also studied whether roPL is capable of stimulating progesterone secretion in vitro by cultured luteal tissue of functionally active CL obtained from day-10 cyclic ewes (experiment 3) and day-60 pregnant ewes (experiment 4). Circulating concentrations of progesterone and cycle length were not affected by treatment of ewes with 80 µg/kg body weight per day of roPL (n = 4 ewes) for 10 days beginning on day 11 post-estrus, as compared with saline-treated ewes (n = 4 ewes). Luteolysis occurred between days 15 and 16 post-estrus in the four saline-treated ewes and in 3/4 roPL-treated ewes. The activities of the key antioxidant enzymes copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (Cu,Zn-SOD), manganese SOD (Mn-SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GSR) and glutathione S-transferase (GST) were unaffected by treatment of ewes with 80 µg/kg per day of roPL (n = 4 ewes) for 3 days, between days 11 and 14 post-estrus, as compared with saline-treated ewes (n = 4 ewes). In situ TUNEL method revealed that the number of apoptotic cells was not different between the two groups of ewes. There was no significant change in progesterone secretion by explants from day-10 estrous cycle (n = 3 ewes) or day-60 pregnancy (n = 3 ewes) CL cultured with different concentrations (10, 100 and 1000 ng/ml) of roPL, whereas treatment with oLH at the concentration of 100 or 1000 ng/ml caused a significant increase in progesterone secretion by explants from day-10 estrous cycle CL (P < 0.05) and by explants from day-60 pregnancy CL (P < 0.01). In conclusion, our results demonstrate that oPL has no luteotropic and/or luteoprotective actions in sheep, either in vivo or in vitro.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				K. H. Al-Gubory, P. Bolifraud, and C. Garrel Regulation of Key Antioxidant Enzymatic Systems in the Sheep Endometrium by Ovarian Steroids Endocrinology, September 1, 2008; 149(9): 4428 - 4434. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]