Immunological cross-reaction between pituitary gonadotropin from North Atlantic fish

• Published in: General and Comparative Endocrinology
• Main Authors: Bye, V.J., Breton, Bernard, Billard, Roland
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 1980
• Subjects: fish;gonadotropin;radioimmunoassay;pituitary extract;specificity; poisson; reproduction; immunologie; gonadotropine; gth; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://prodinra.inra.fr/ft/EA50C058-83E7-4CC1-BD06-8ABD48826809; http://prodinra.inra.fr/record/395857; https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-6480(80)90042-8

Pituitary extracts of 14 species of fish from the North Atlantic were tested in rainbow trout and carp gonadotropin radioimmunoassays (RIA). The poor cross-reaction and low gonadotropin content measured in the pituitary extracts indicate that RIA used for trout and carp gonadotropins are unsuitable for these species. The degree of specificity in the two systems does not reflect the phylogenetic relationships of the tested species. It is suggested that fish gonadotropins are species specific so that a sensitive RIA must be developed for each family investigated. A species specificity between fish and mammalian gonadotropins was suggested by work on goldfish spermatogenesis (Billard et al., 1970; Billard and Escaffre, 1973). Specificity among some groups of freshwater fish has also been indicated by other work on gonadotropins (Burzawa-Gérard and Fontaine, 1972; Fontaine et al., 1972; Breton et al., 1973). However during the final stages of gametogenesis (ovulation and spermiation) the species specificity appears to be less pronounced since human chorionic gonadotropin or heterologous pituitary preparations are potent treatments (cf. reviews by Pickford and Atz, 1957; Barnabé and René, 1972; Kuo et al., 1973; Shehadeh et al., 1973; De Vlaming, 1974). In the present study the immunological cross-reaction between pituitary preparations of a variety of fish species was tested in order to extend the investigation of species specificity and to examine the possibility of gonadotropin measurement in other species using carp and trout radioimmunoassay (RIA) systems already available (Breton et al., 1971; Breton and Billard, 1977).