Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0016382 (flushing)
 6,387 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The steroid hormone has an important role in the early stages of reproduction. There has been abundant histochemical evidence that oocytes contain steroid hormones and are able to synthesize these hormones. But there have been few methods of analyzing one oocyte biochemically because it is too small and light. In order to study steroidogenesis in the oocyte, a microassay method sensitive enough to analyze the enzyme activities in one oocyte was developed using enzymatic cyling for amplifying the reaction product to 10,000-fold. An oil-well technique and a microtube method were applied in the assay for achieving the reaction in a medium as small as 1.0 to 5.0 microliters under a stereomicroscope. Immature Wistar rats were superovulated by PMS-hCG administration. Oocytes were collected by puncturing the follicle and flushing the tube. They were freeze-dried after washing to remove cumulus cells. The dry weight of one oocyte was 51.2 +/- 6.2 ng in a quartz fiber fishpole balance. The activity of 3 beta hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 beta HSD) (picomol/oocyte/hr, substrate:pregnenolone) in the PMS-treated oocyte was 2.66 +/- 0.59, which corresponds to 3 times the activity of the ovarian homogenate as control, indicating the high capacity of oocytes to produce progesterone. The activity increased significantly (P less than 0.01) by hCG administration up to 4.17 +/- 0.29 after ovulation, suggesting that gonadotropin regulates steroidogenesis in the oocyte. The activities of G6PD and 6PGD were 8.41 +/- 1.09 picomol/oocyte/min and 3.85 +/- 2.02 picomol/oocyte/hr, respectively. The high activity of G6PD (more than 10 times that of the ovarian homogenate) suggests that the pentose phosphate shunt concerned with steroidogenesis is active in the oocyte. HCG decreased the activities of both G6PD and 6PGD. The present results show that steroidogenesis in the oocyte is very active under the control of gonadotropin, suggesting that steroid hormones may play an important role in oocyte maturation, ovulation and fertilization.
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PMID:[Studies on steroidogenesis in the oocyte]. 696 20

A microassay method sensitive enough to analyze the enzyme activities in one oocyte was developed using enzymatic cycling for amplifying the reaction product to 10,000 fold. An oil-well technique was applied in the assay for achieving the reaction in the medium as small as 1.0 to 5.0 microliter. Immature Wistar rats were superovulated by PMS-hCG administration. Oocytes were collected by the puncture of the follicle and the flushing of the tube. They were freeze-dried after washing to remove cumulus cells. The dry weight was about 50ng on a quartz fiber fishpole balance. The activity of hexokinase was 1.75 +/- 0.14 picomol/oocyte/hr corresponding to one-tenth of the ovarian homogenate as control, indicating low capacity of glucose utilization in the oocyte. The activities of G6PD, LDH, and MDH were 8.41 +/- 0.34, 35.7 +/- 2.89. 11.1 +/- 2.5 picomol/oocyte/min, respectively. High activity of G6PD suggests the pentose phosphate shunt concerned with steroidogenesis is active in the oocyte. HCG increased the activities of hexokinase and MDH and decreased that of G6PD. The activity of LDH remained unchanged.
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PMID:[Study of energy metabolism in the oocyte by cycling method]. 717 80

We report a case of a recurrent empty follicle syndrome. The patient was admitted to our intracytoplasmic injection program because of her partner's azoospermia. Ovarian stimulation was accomplished using gonadotrophin therapy after treatment with oral contraceptive pills followed by gonadotrophin-releasing hormone agonist. Thirty-six hours after the administration of HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophins), transvaginal oocyte retrieval yielded no oocytes despite the aspiration and flushing of all available follicles. Two years later, a second treatment cycle was started using the same pituitary desensitisation and ovarian stimulation regimens. HCG from a different batch with respect to that used in the first treatment cycle was administered. Aspiration and repeated flushing of all follicles of one ovary failed to yield any identifiable oocyte. The beta-HCG and progesterone serum concentrations on the day of retrieval were 181 mIU/mL and 3.79 ng/mL, respectively. New oocyte retrieval was planned 6 h after the first attempt for aspiration of follicles. Again, no ova were obtained at this second trial despite the aspiration of the all follicles. As to our knowledge this is the first report of recurrent EFS (empty follicle syndrome) and managed without repeating the HCG injection on the day of unsuccessful oocyte retrieval.
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PMID:Recurrent empty follicle syndrome. 1453 52