Studies on metabolism of vitamin A. The effect of hormones on gestation in retinoate-fed female rats.

1. Female rats, raised to maturity on a vitamin A-deficient diet supplemented with retinoate as the sole source of vitamin A, conceived when allowed to mate with normal males, but the conception resulted in foetal resorption, beginning from day 14 or 15 of pregnancy. 2. Daily injections of pregnenolone or oestradiol-17beta, but not of progesterone, were fully effective, and transplantation of pituitary homografts under kidney capsules was 80% effective, in preventing resorption. 3. Unilateral ovariectomy, leading to compensatory hypertrophy of the remaining ovary, resulted in significantly fewer corpora lutea and in lower weight of the hypertrophied ovary of the retinoate-treated rats, as compared with the corresponding retinyl acetate-fed ones. 4. The activity of the enzyme system Delta(5)-3beta-hydroxy steroid dehydrogenase was significantly less in the ovaries of the retinoate-fed rats that were subjected to unilateral ovariectomy or were made pregnant, when compared with that of the corresponding controls. Also, the ovaries of the retinoate-treated rats were insensitive to both exogenous and endogenous gonadotrophin stimulus. 5. These results indicate that one of the reasons for foetal resorption in the retinoate-fed rats might be inadequate synthesis of steroid hormones such as pregnenolone and oestrogen.