Expression of Prostasin Serine Protease and Protease Nexin-1 (PN-1) in Rhesus Monkey Ovary During Menstrual Cycle and Early Pregnancy

Heng Zhang ¹, Hai-Yan Lin ¹, Qing Yang ¹, Hong-Xing Wang ¹, Karl X. Chai ¹, Li-Mei Chen ¹ and Cheng Zhu ^1*

¹ State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology (HZ,H-YL,QY,H-XW,CZ) and Graduate School (HZ,QY), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, and Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology (KXC,L-MC) and Biomolecular Science Center (KXC), University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zhuc{at}ioz.ac.cn.

Submitted on May 7, 2007
Accepted on 14 August 2007

	Abstract

Serine proteases and their cognate serpin-class inhibitors are involved in the controlled proteolytic events during follicular development, ovulation, formation and maintenance of corpus luteum (CL). In the present study, we investigated the expression patterns of prostasin serine protease and protease nexin-1 (PN-1), a serine protease inhibitor also called serpin-E2, in rhesus monkey ovary during menstrual cycle and early pregnancy, by using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry. Expression of prostasin was localized in oocyte, granulosa cells and/or theca cells of early antral follicles and antral follicles, with high level observed in preovulatory follicles. Prostasin was also localized at high levels of abundance in corpus luteum during menstrual cycle and early pregnancy. During menstrual cycle, PN-1 was coordinately localized with prostasin in oocyte, granulosa cells and theca cells of antral follicles and preovulatory follicles, and in corpus luteum. In addition, the PN-1 expression level in macaque CL during early pregnancy increased as pregnancy proceeded. We propose that prostasin may be involved in follicular development, ovulation and CL formation, while PN-1 may be present to regulate the proteolysis in these processes.

Key Words: prostasin, protease nexin-1, ovary, primate

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