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¹ Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and
² Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, University of Córdoba, Córdoba, Spain

(Requests for offprints should be addressed to J A Bárcena; Email: bb1 barua{at}uco.es)

Glutaredoxins (Grxs) are low-molecular-weight proteins which participate in redox events in association with glutathione (GSH) and are involved in a variety of cellular processes. It is known that oxidative stress plays important physiological roles within the ovary. In the present study, we have prepared specific antibodies against rat Grx and have used them to localize the protein in the ovaries of rats during postnatal development and during the oestrous cycle, by immunohistochemical methods. We have also performed a quantitative analysis of Grx by ELISA and Western blotting in homogenates of whole ovaries of cycling and pseudopregnant rats. We have found a prominent presence of Grx in the oocytes and in corpora lutea (CL) during developmental and oestrous cycle changes. Grx was absent from the oocytes in the first days of postnatal life when marked oocyte degeneration takes place, but its presence was very conspicuous in the cytoplasm of oocytes in healthy and attretic follicles in rats from 10 days of age onward, independently of the day of oestrous cycle. Follicular cells were negative. Grx immunostaining in the CL was strong in infiltrating macrophages and in a population of steroidogenic cells that survived the apoptotic burst in regressing CL and in CL remnants, but was faint or absent in young CL of the current cycle and in CL during pseudopregnancy. Grx content and oxidoreductase activity in whole ovaries increased significantly during the phase transition from proestrous to oestrous along the cycle. These results support a role of Grx in the maintenance of functional oocytes and in luteal cells surviving the regression process, probably as a consequence of the demonstrated deglutathionylating function of this protein in an antioxidant and antiapoptotic context.