New finding may aid infertility treatments

BETHESDA, Md., May 14 (UPI) -- A team of U.S. medical scientists says it has, in a mouse study, identified two proteins that are apparently essential for ovulation to occur.

The researchers from the National Institutes of Health and other facilities said their finding has implications for treating infertility resulting from a failure of ovulation, as well as for developing new means to prevent pregnancy by preventing the release of the egg.

The proteins -- ERK1 and ERK2 -- appear to bring about the maturation and release of the egg.

"Ovulation results from a complex interplay of chemical sequences," said Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "The researchers have identified a crucial biochemical intermediary controlling the release of the egg. The finding advances our understanding and may one day contribute to new treatments for infertility as well as new ways to prevent pregnancy from occurring."

The study that included JoAnne Richards, Heng-Yu Fan and Zhilin Liu of the Baylor College of Medicine; Esta Sterneck and Peter Johnson of the National Cancer Institute; Masayuki Shimada of Hiroshima University in Japan; and Stephen Hedrick of the University of California-San Diego appears in the journal Science.