Hormone regulation of the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptors in mouse uterus

To investigate the effects of estrogen and progesterone on the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors (VEGFR) in mouse uterus.3-week-old immature female mice were randomly divided into 7 groups and treated with corn oil, estradiol (E2) of 1.5, 3.0, 10, 25 ng, progesterone (P) of 100 microg and (E2 10 ng + P 100 microg)/mouse, respectively. After the treatment for 48 h, mouse uterus was collected to isolate total RNA. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of mRNA isoforms of VEGF and its receptors in mouse uterus.Compared with control, both E2 and P significantly increased the expression of VEGF164 and VEGF120 mRNA in mouse uterus. The expression of VEGFR2 mRNA, not VEGF1 mRNA, was decreased by E2 treatment in a dose-independent manner.Both estradiol and progesterone up-regulated the expression of VEGF, but estradiol down-regulated the expression of VEGFR2 in mouse uterus.PubMed05501-33