Luteinizing hormone causes MAP kinase-dependent phosphorylation and closure of connexin 43 gap junctions in mouse ovarian follicles: one of two paths to meiotic resumption.

ABSTRACT: Luteinizing hormone (LH) acts on ovarian follicles to reinitiate meiosis in prophase-arrested mammalian oocytes, and this has been proposed to occur by interruption of a meioisis-inhibitory signal that is transmitted through gap junctions into the oocyte from the somatic cells that surround it. To investigate this idea, we microinjected fluorescent tracers into live antral follicle-enclosed mouse oocytes, and we demonstrate for the first time that LH causes a decrease in the gap junction permeability between the somatic cells, prior to nuclear envelope breakdown (NEBD). The decreased permeability results from the MAP kinase-dependent phosphorylation of connexin 43 on serines 255, 262 and 279/282. We then tested whether the inhibition of gap junction communication was sufficient and necessa

SUBMITTER: Norris RP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2572224 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature