Signal transduction for FSH regulating ovarian differentiation

The paper gives a brief summary of our work related to signal transduction of FSH-regulated follicular differentiation and function. The review mainly concentrated in the three aspects: (1) Regulation of stem cell factor (SCF) in the primordial follicles and its signal transduction; (2) Role of ERKI/2 in FSH-regulated proliferative activity and steroidogenesis in granulosa cells (GC); (3) FSH receptor activation of p38 MAPK and steroidogenesis in GC. We have demonstrated in these studies that (1) SCIF prevents oocyte from apoptosis in the cultured ovaries. Addition of a SCIF specific inhibitor, PI3K, abolishes the anti-apoptotic action of SCF; (2) FSH promotes PCNA expression, and increases the cell ability of steroidogenesis in the cultured primary GCs, suggesting that the activated ERK1/2 may be involved in the regulation of FSH in GC proliferation and differentiation; (3) FSH-activated p38 MAPK pathway regulates progesterone and estrogen synthesis in GCs differently, LRH-1 and DAX-1 may be the effective transcription factor in the signal transduction.