The autonomic innervation of the interstitial gland of the rat ovary during pregnancy

Abstract

The autonomic innervation of the interstitial gland of the rat ovary was studied on days 4, 6, 10, 14 and 18 of pregnancy with the acetylcholinesterase procedure, the Falck-Hillarp technique and electron microscopy after 5-hydroxydopamine treatment. Acetylcholinesterase-positive nerves were present as perivascular plexuses at all stages studied. Adrenergic nerves were present in the interstitial gland in all stages studied. The number and intensity of interstitial fluorescent adrenergic nerves increased as pregnancy progressed. Measurement of norepinephrine with the fluorometric procedure showed a highly significant (p less than 0.05) increase in the neurotransmitter in the ovary on days 14 and 18 as compared to day 4. Fine-structural studies after administration of the false transmitter, 5-hydroxydopamine, showed that the innervation of the steroidogenic cells of the interstitial gland is adrenergic.

Effect of abdominal vagotomy of the pregnant rat on LH and progesterone concentrations and fetal resorption

“…Vagotomy may, however, directly affect ovarian 3ß-HSD activity. Adrenergic and cholinergic denervation of the rat ovary by mesovarian section or selected adrenergic denervation with 6-hydroxydopamine decreases the activity of 3ß-HSD in the interstitial gland and corpora lutea of rats at Days 10, 14 and 18 of pregnancy (Burden & Lawrence, 1977a (Lawrence & Burden, 1976 …”

“…One reason for this is that the thiocholine technique (Koelle, 1955;Karnovsky & Roots, 1964) used to study ovarian acetylcholinesterase (AChE)-positive nerves (Bulmer, 1965;Jacobowitz & Wallach, 1967;Jordan, 1970;Chaffee, 1974;Lawrence & Burden, 1976) does not identify parasympathetic cholinergic nerves exclusively because AChE activity is present in sensory (Koelle, 1955), adrenergic (Koelle, 1955;Jacobowitz & Koelle, 1965; Burn & Rand, 1965), and post-ganglionic parasympathetic nerves.…”

Catecholamine-induced stimulation of testosterone production by Leydig cells from fetal mouse testis

“…It is therefore tempting to speculate that in vivo these agents reach the fetal testis and exert a local regulation within the fetal testis. On the other hand, the presence of adrenergic axons innervating testicular interstitial tissue was reported for the adult (Goujard, 1954;Hodson, 1970;Lawrence & Burden, 1976;Frankel & Ryan, 1981). Such a direct involvement of the autonomie nervous system is likely to occur during fetal development since neural pathways innervating the fetal urogential complex have been characterized (Brauer et al, 1985).…”

The Involvement of Dopamine in the Regulation of Steroido-genesis in Rat Ovarian Cells

“…Adrenergic nerve endings are mainly located around the blood vessels in the stromal tissue in the ovary [ 1], Some fibers also penetrate the thecal cell layer, but do not reach the granulosa layer [2], This pattern of innervation is common to various mammalian ovaries. Hill [3] re ported that the estrous cycle in rats was disturbed by sym pathetic denervation.…”