Research Article

Impact of Ovariectomy on the Anterior Pituitary Gland in Female Rats

Figure 7

Effect of follistatin on GnRH-induced gonadotropin subunit expression (a, b). LβT2 cells were stimulated with 100 nM GnRH, 10 ng/mL follistatin (FS), or both for 24 h. Then, gonadotropin LHβ (a) and FSHβ (b) subunit mRNA levels were measured by quantitative RT-PCR. Samples for each experimental group were run in duplicate and normalized to the mRNA levels of GAPDH as a housekeeping gene. (c and d) LβT2 cells were cotransfected with pRL-TK (0.1 μg) plus 2.0 μg LHβ-Luc (c) or FSHβ-Luc (d) vectors. At 48 h after transfection, the cells were treated with 100 nM GnRH, 10 ng/mL FS, or both for 6 h. A luciferase assay was performed to examine LHβ and FSHβ promoter activity, which was normalized to Renilla luciferase activity. The results are expressed as fold induction over control and presented as the mean ± SEM. , vs. control.
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