Masato Yoshihara, Shigehiko Mizutani, Kunio Matsumoto, Yukio Kato, Yusuke Masuo, Arita Harumasa, Shohei Iyoshi, Sho Tano, Hidesuke Mizutani, Tomomi Kotani, Eita Mizutani, Kiyosumi Shibata, Hiroaki Kajiyama
A fetal pituitary hormone, oxytocin which causes uterine contractions, increases throughout gestation, and its increase reaches 10-fold from week 32 afterward. Oxytocin is, on the other hand, degraded by placental leucine aminopeptidase (P-LAP) which exists in both terminal villi and maternal blood. Maternal blood P-LAP increases with advancing gestation under the control of non-genomic effects of progesterone, which is also produced from the placenta. Progesterone is converted to estrogen by CYP17A1 localized in the fetal adrenal gland and placenta at term...
September 2023: European journal of obstetrics & gynecology and reproductive biology: X