Cholesterol Precursor Pools of Progesterone in the Bovine Ovary Perfused in vitro . ∗

Summary

Bovine ovaries were perfused in vitro with acetate-1-¹⁴C throughout an experiment which lasted 377 minutes. Luteal ovaries and the contralateral follicular ovaries were sequentially infused with prolactin, and then with LH. At the end of the perfusion, the specific activity of luteal cholesterol-¹⁴C was slightly greater than the specific activity of either the luteal tissue progesterone-¹⁴C or the secreted progesterone-¹⁴C. The specific activity of the cholesterol-¹⁴C isolated from the residual stromal tissue and from the follicular ovaries was much lower than that observed in the corpus luteum.