Pregnancy protein identified.
Scientists have identified a protein that usually appears only during the few days of a woman's menstrual cycle when pregnancy can begin. The discovery eventually may help solve infertility problems and lead to new types of contraception, said Bruce A. Lessey, who led a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the independent Wistar Institute."We can't prove yet that it is important," said Lessey, a reproductive endocrinologist at Penn. However, the research appears to provide a clear signal of the two- to three-day interval when an embryo can attach to the lining of a uterus, he said.
The researchers' findings were to appear in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, published by the Rockefeller University Press in New York. The protein is called the beta3 subunit of the vitronectin receptor. The research could be an important step in understanding how the lining of the uterus is connected to fertility.
--From the Ann Arbor News, 7/16/92
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| Title Annotation: | beta-3 subunit of the vitronectin receptor |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Special Delivery |
| Date: | Sep 22, 1992 |
| Words: | 159 |
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