THE ANTILUTEINIZING POTENCY OF FIVE DERIVATIVES OF PROGESTERONE

Abstract

INTRODUCTION THE antiluteinizing potency of progesterone known through the work of Dempsey, Selye and others has been tested in experiments with intrasplenic ovarian grafts in castrated female guinea-pigs (Mardones et al., 1951). When estrogen is administered appearance of hemorrhagic follicles in the graft is prevented and large corpora lutea are produced; when progesterone is given simultaneously with estrogen, corpora lutea fail to appear. Evidence has been given that the quantity of progesterone necessary for complete prevention of estrogen-induced corpora lutea is probably smaller than that which is produced by the normal ovary in the luteal phase. Since these results have been obtained in experiments with the continuous administration of progesterone (absorbed from pellets) they do not definitely prove that the antiluteinizing faculty of progesterone interferes in the autoregulatory mechanism on which the sequence of the ovarian phases depends; but these results would not be contrary to the concept that the antiluteinizing faculty of progesterone is implicated in such an autoregulatory mechanism. This adds considerable interest to the problem of the comparative antiluteinizing potency of progestational steroids.