Gene expression in cultured bovine ovarian granulosa

The growth of the mammalian ovarian follicle requires the formation of a fluid filled antrum, and maturation and differentiation of the ovarian granulosa cells, largely under the control of Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH). Many follicles will regress and die by a process called atresia at this early antral stage. We therefore decided to analyse the gene expression profiles of granulosa cells cultured in the presence or absence of FSH and Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNFα), an apoptotic factor, to simulate the key influences. Different concentratons of FSH and TNFa in granulosa culture were used to determine effective conditions via estradiol and progesterone production, and cell number. RNA for the array experiments and quantitative real time PCR was extracted from cells cultured with FSH added at 0.33 and TNFα at 50 ng/ml. Four treatments of : (1) FSH alone, (2) TNFα alone, (3) FSH + TNFα and (4) control = neither drug, with replicates (n=4, except controls n=3 ) were used to generate RNA for the gene expression arrays (n=15)