Bioregulators of Reproduction

Bioregulators of Reproduction focuses on the biological regulators of reproductive processes. Discussions are grouped based on sex differentiation and determination, germ cell reproduction, gonadotropins, nonsteroidal gonadal hormones, in vitro fertilization, and post-fertilization. This text is organized into six sections and comprised of 31 chapters, beginning with a discussion on the most important regulatory mechanisms underlying reproduction. The reader is then methodically introduced to the role of the H-Y antigen in primary sex determination, H-Y antigenic determinants of human testis-organizing protein, and how H-Y antibodies confuse antigenic complexes with unaltered self or allo-MHC antigens. The cellular mechanisms of sexual differentiation of the brain, meiosis in female mammals, and interspecies comparisons in molecular reproductive biology are also considered. Other chapters explore the role of haplodins in the ovarian and extraovarian control of meiosis; the link between nucleoprotein transitions and chromatin changes during rat spermatogenesis; and gonadotropin secretion in primates. This book will be of interest to students and scientists in fields ranging from biology and neuroendocrinology to genetics, biochemistry, biophysics, pathology, and zoology.