The fate of the corpus luteum, a transient endocrine gland formed and degraded during an oestrous cycle, is decided by various physiological factors, such as luteinizing hormone (LH). As a stimulator of progesterone, LH is known to maintain corpus luteum functional and structural integrity by inhibiting apoptosis, a programmed cell death. Therefore, we aim to investigate its action during the mid‐luteal phase hypothesized that LH suppresses the death mechanism of bovine luteal steroidogenic cells (LSC) by analysing the expression of proteins involved. Cultured bovine LSC obtained from corpus luteum were treated for 24 hr with recombinant TNF and IFNG in the presence or absence of LH. The result showed that LH proved to have a protective effect by increased cell viability (p < .05) and prevented DNA fragmentation (p < .05), as demonstrated by the WST‐1 colorimetric assay and TUNEL assay. Expression analysis of mRNA and protein levels showed that LH altered the expression of BCL2 (p < .05), CASP3 (p < .05), FAS (p < .05), and BAX (p < .05) to support cell survival. In conclusion, our study suggests that LH prolongs the corpus luteum life span through the anti‐apoptotic mechanism by increasing cell viability and suppressing apoptosis‐related genes and protein expression.

中文翻译：

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黄体生成素作为体外牛黄体细胞凋亡抑制因子的作用

黄体是一种在发情周期中形成和降解的短暂内分泌腺，其命运由多种生理因素决定，例如促黄体生成素 (LH)。作为孕酮的刺激剂，已知 LH 通过抑制细胞凋亡（一种程序性细胞死亡）来维持黄体功能和结构的完整性。因此，我们旨在通过分析相关蛋白质的表达来研究其在黄体中期的作用，假设 LH 抑制牛黄体类固醇生成细胞 (LSC) 的死亡机制。在存在或不存在 LH 的情况下，从黄体获得的培养的牛 LSC 用重组 TNF 和 IFNG 处理 24 小时。结果表明，LH 通过增加细胞活力证明具有保护作用（p < .05) 并防止 DNA 片段化 ( p  < .05)，如 WST-1 比色测定和 TUNEL 测定所示。和蛋白mRNA的表达水平的分析表明，LH改变的表达 BCL2（p  <0.05），CASP3（p  <0.05），FAS（p  <0.05） ， 和 BAX  （p  <0.05），以支持细胞存活. 总之，我们的研究表明，LH 通过增加细胞活力和抑制凋亡相关基因和蛋白质表达，通过抗凋亡机制延长黄体寿命。