CONTROL OF PITUITARY FUNCTIONS OF SYNTHESIS AND RELEASE OF PROLACTIN AND GROWTH HORMONE BY GONADAL STEROIDS IN FEMALE AND MALE RATS

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Abstract
After gonadectomy and subsequent daily supplements of 17.beta.-estradiol or testosterone propionate, the anterior pituitary of rats was excised intact, incubated in vitro with 14C-leucine, and the radioactivity incorporated into prolactin and growth hormone was counted. Employing appropriate parameters calculated from hormone radioactivity counts both in the incubated tissue and the incubation medium, 2 unit functions of the anterior pituitary, hormone synthesis and release, were studied. In female rats both estrogens and androgens enhance prolactin synthesis and release functions, and also growth hormone release function, but depress the growth hormone synthesis function. In male rats, androgens do not appear to be effective with any of the pituitary functions studied, but estrogens are as effective as in female rats. Estrogens play an essential role in controlling both synthesis and release of prolactin and also of growth hormone in female rats, but androgens do not play any significant role in male rats.