Track-by-Day: A standardized approach to estrous cycle monitoring in biobehavioral research

Despite known sex differences in brain function, female subjects are underrepresented in preclinical neuroscience research. This is driven in part by concerns about variability arising from estrous cycle-related hormone fluctuations, especially in fear- and anxiety-related research where there are conflicting reports as to whether and how the cycle influences behavior. The inconsistency may arise from a lack of common standards for tracking and reporting the cycle as opposed to inherent unpredictability in the cycle itself. The rat estrous cycle is conventionally tracked by assigning vaginal cytology smears to one of four qualitatively-defined stages. Although the cytology stages are of unequal length, the stage names are often, but not always, used to refer to the four cycle days. Subjective staging criteria and inconsistent use of terminology are not necessarily a problem in research on the cycle itself, but can lead to irreproducibility in neuroscience studies that treat the stages as independent grouping factors. We propose the explicit use of cycle days as independent variables, which we term Track-by-Day to differentiate it from traditional stage-based tracking, and that days be indexed to the only cytology feature that is a direct and rapid consequence of a hormonal event: a cornified cell layer formed in response to the pre-ovulatory 17β-estradiol peak. Here we demonstrate that cycle length is robustly regular with this method, and that the method outperforms traditional staging in detecting estrous cycle effects on Pavlovian fear conditioning and on a separate proxy for hormonal changes, uterine histology.

Progesterone down-regulates SLIT/ROBO expression in mouse corpus luteum

BACKGROUND

Progesterone produced by the corpus luteum (CL) is essential for preparation, implantation and maintenance of gestation. Furthermore, progesterone plays a protective role against luteolysis in rodents. It has been reported that Slit/Robo family members expressed in the CL and involved in prostaglandin F_2α (PGF_2α) induced luteolysis. However, the interactions between progesterone and Slits/Robos in CL are not clear. This study was designed to examine whether or not luteolysis is regulated by the interaction of progesterone and Slits/Robos in mouse CL.

METHODS

In the current study, we used Real-time PCR to identify the effect of progesterone on Slit2/Robo1 expression in cultured luteal cells in vitro, and the exogenous progesterone injection on mouse luteolysis and Slit/Robo expression in vivo was studied via Real-time PCR and Western bolt.

RESULTS

Our in vitro experiment revealed that 1μM progesterone significantly decreased Slit2/Robo1 mRNA levels at 6h, 12h and 24h. Our in vivo experiment showed that the mRNA and protein levels of Slit2 and Robo1 decreased significantly 7days after progesterone supplement.

CONCLUSION

These findings indicate that progesterone maintains CL function and resists luteolysis possibly through down-regulating Slit/Robo signaling pathway in the CL.