The biological meaning of prostaglandin-levels

Two groups of term pregnant rats, one pretreated with progesterone (P) and another with vehicle only, were induced to deliver with PGF2α. Through an implanted intrauterine (extraovular) catheter 5 μg PGF2α was injected into each animal every 15 minutes until delivery occurred. If induction failed the fetuses were removed by hysterotomy. All vehicle controls started delivery within 38.3±11.7 minutes. In contrast, none of the P-treated rats responded to PGF2α. In all animals uterine vein blood and uterine tissue were collected during labor.Measurements of the P and PGF in uterine vein plasma and uterine tissue showed that the P-treated rats had significantly higher P-levels than the controls (P<0.001). In contrast, the PGF-levels were similar in the two groups, but significantly elevated (P<0.001) beyond spontaneous labor values. Evidently, the massive elevation of PGF-levels only induces labor when the myometrial action of P is critically reduced and is ineffective when P-action is sustained. Thus, PGF-concentrations cannot be presumed to predict PGF-effect, because the latter is controlled by P.     

The biological meaning of species*

The two medieval species concepts, the essentialist and the nominalist, have been replaced by the biological species concept, denned in terms of the relation (i.e. ‘reproductively isolated’) between populations. The species represents an important level in the hierarchy of biological entities from the molecule to the community. Six major areas are discussed, on which much of the research on species is now focused.     

Extracting meaning from biological imaging data

Biological imaging continues to improve, capturing continually longer-term, richer, and more complex data, penetrating deeper into live tissue. How do we gain insight into the dynamic processes of disease and development from terabytes of multidimensional image data? Here I describe a collaborative approach to extracting meaning from biological imaging data. The collaboration consists of teams of biologists and engineers working together. Custom computational tools are built to best exploit application-specific knowledge in order to visualize and analyze large and complex data sets. The image data are summarized, extracting and modeling the features that capture the objects and relationships in the data. The summarization is validated, the results visualized, and errors corrected as needed. Finally, the customized analysis and visualization tools together with the image data and the summarization results are shared. This Perspective provides a brief guide to the mathematical ideas that rigorously quantify the notion of extracting meaning from biological image, and to the practical approaches that have been used to apply these ideas to a wide range of applications in cell and tissue optical imaging.     

The relationship of circulating plasma progesterone levels and rectal temperatures in gilts

To ascertain if a correlation exists between circulating plasma progesterone levels and rectal temperatures in swine, 10 mixed breed postpubertal ovariectomized gilts were treated with sesame oil containing 500 mg progesterone IM or with saline IM. The average daily rectal temperatures were not correlated with the circulating plasma progesterone levels. Rectal temperature observations do not provide a useful indication of corpus luteum activity in swine.     

Serum progesterone levels in early imminent abortion

Blood progesterone levels of 112 women in 5 to 10 weeks of gestation were analyzed. Of them, 58 women were admitted for voluntary surgical abortion (control group), while 54 patients showed clinical signs of imminent spontaneous abortion (study group). Mean progesterone levels by gestational age (5 to 10 weeks--control/study) were as follows: 49.4/33.4-54.2/36.5-57.8/39.8-68.2/46.2-83.4/69.1-99.8/98.9 nmol/l. These values were significantly lower in the 5 to 9-week spontaneous abortion patients compared to the controls. No significant difference was observed in the 10-week group. The authors consider progesterone assays as a useful screening method for progesterone deficiency among imminent abortion patients and providing basis for better knowledge of the physiological background and meaningful therapy of this pathological condition.     

The effect of progesterone implants on ovulation and plasma levels of LH, FSH and progesterone in anoestrous ewes.

The effects of 100-mg progesterone implants in anoestrous ewes on plasma progesterone and gonadotrophin levels are described. Implant removal resulted in a surge of plasma gonadotrophins and ovulation, but there was no evidence of behavioural oestrus in 90% of the ewes. These results are discussed.     

Relationship between progesterone receptor binding and progestin biological activity

The binding affinities of a series of steroidal compounds for the hamster uterine progesterone receptor were determined using two sets of incubation conditions. These competitive binding conditions were designed to deduce the relative rates of ligand dissociation from the progesterone receptor. The progestin activity of these compounds was also determined in a bioassay employing the measurement of diamine oxidase in the traumatized hamster uterus. Steroids could be classified into two categories based on either an increase or decrease in relative binding affinity (RBA) with increasing time of competitive incubation. The mean (+/- SEM) progestin biopotency for the compounds having an increase in RBA was 120 +/- 18 (progesterone = 100), while the biopotency for compounds having a decrease in RBA was only 44 +/- 17. This difference was significant (P less than 0.01). Linear regression analyses revealed significant correlations between the RBAs and progestin biopotencies. Compounds showing a decrease in RBA with increasing time of incubation did not have antiprogestin activity. Kinetic studies of this type should be useful for selecting compounds with potent agonistic activity, but cannot unequivocally predict antihormonal activity.     

Midtrimester pregnancy interruption and the placental progesterone levels

Placental progesterone contents were studied in 10 patients therapeutically aborted at midtrimester by intraamniotic infusions of hypertonic saline, and from 14 patients (12–20 weeks) aborted by intraamniotic instillation of prostaglandin F_2∝. The mean S.E. of the progesterone was 1.99± 0.07 ug/g. placental tissue in the first group, while with prostaglandin abortion the placental progesterone was 1.45± 0.09 ug/g. tissue, which is significantly lower than the results in the first group (P=0.001). The possible mechanism of action of prostaglandin as an effective abortifacient is discussed.