Endocrine Abstracts

In most species progesterone acts to inhibit cervical ripening and myometrial contractility throughout pregnancy and labour is heralded by prostaglandin stimulated withdrawal of progesterone. Human labour is associated with increased prostaglandin synthesis, via COX-2 but there is no clear systemic withdrawal of progesterone at the time of labour. There is upregulation of genes which are normally repressed by progesterone leading to the concept that human labour is associated ...

Prostaglandins are strongly implicated in the onset and maintenance of human parturition and their synthesis is increased within the uterus in association with labour. Enzymes involved in their synthesis, (cyclo-oxygenase-2), and catabolism, (prostaglandin dehydrogenase) are up and down-regulated respectively, in association with labour. The human prostaglandin dehydrogenase (PGDH) gene is approximately 34kb in size. A large 5' promoter region containing numerous potential tra...