From bony fishes to mammals: reproductive cycles in vertebrates, hormones and hormone-receptors

Abstract

Some reproductive cycles of vertebrates are still little known. Yet, a good knowledge of reproductive cycles and regulation is useful to protect a threatened species, or inversely to control the proliferation of a species which has been recognized as a pest, or still when an animal becomes a model used to study fundamental physiological phenomena with applications to medical research. So, for several years, the studies of our laboratory and associated teams were devoted to the study of reproduction in several vertebrates, related to the external conditions which can be natural (climate, genetics) as well as artificial (pollution). In a first time, variations of both male and female genital tracts were studied in several vertebrates with anatomical and histological methods. To-day, the availability of a large panel of antibodies directed against hormones and their receptors allows the visualization of such molecules in organs according to sexual cycles or submitted to artificial factors such as pollution. Sexual cycles and the importance of hormones and their receptors in regulation are now an important purpose for our own works. Vertebrate models studied to-day are bony fishes living in fresh water, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, living in semi-aquatic, temperate, equatorial, Mediterranean or arid climates. Our purpose is to obtain a large panel of situations allowing the understanding of the complexity and plasticity of reproductive modes, and the effects of external factors of animal species in order to be useful to the preservation of threatened species, regulation of reproduction on animals considered as pests and use of animal models.