Abstract
The present studies examined the feasibility of performing in vivo biosynthetic studies of hypothalamic LHRH in preoptic area cannulated individual ovariectomized, estradiol benzoate (EB)-progesterone (P) treated rats. One day after EB treatment, rats were bilaterally cannulated in the anterior ventromedial preoptic area (POA). The following day, rats were treated with P, and a mix of 3H-proline and 3H-leucine (500 muCi) was continuously infused (for 8 hr) into the POA using an Alzet osmotic minipump delivery system at a rate of 1 microliter/h/cannula. 3H-LHRH was acid-extracted from discrete hypothalamic regions (POA, medial basal hypothalamus [MBH]and median eminence [ME]) and was purified to constant specific activity by sequential High Performance Liquid Chromatography. 3H-LHRH accounted for 0.010%, 0.018% and 1.6% of the total tissue 3H recovered in the POA, MBH and ME, respectively. These results demonstrate the feasibility of performing physiological studies on the biosynthesis and transport of hypothalamic LHRH using POA cannulated free-running female rats.