Müllerian Inhibiting Substance lowers testosterone in luteinizing hormone-stimulated rodents

Mullerian Inhibiting Substance (MIS) expression is inversely proportional to the serum concentration of testosterone in males after birth and in vitro studies have shown that MIS can lower testosterone production by Leydig cells. Also, mice overexpressing MIS exhibited Leydig cell hypoplasia and lower levels of serum testosterone, but it is not clear whether this is a result of MIS affecting the development of Leydig cells or their capacity to produce testosterone. To examine the hypothesis that MIS treatment will result in decreased testosterone production by mature Leydig cells in vivo, we treated luteinizing hormone (LH)-stimulated adult male rats and mice with MIS and demonstrated that it can lead to a several-fold reduction in testosterone in serum and in testicular extracts. There was also a slight decrease in 17-OH-progesterone compared to the more significant decrease in testosterone, suggesting that MIS might be regulating the lyase activity of cytochrome P450c17 hydroxylase/lyase (Cyp17), but not its hydroxylase activity. Northern analysis showed that, in both MIS-treated rats and mice, the mRNA for Cyp17, which catalyzes the committed step in androgen synthesis, was down-regulated. In rats, the mRNA for cytochrome P450 side-chain cleavage (P450scc) was also down-regulated by MIS. This was not observed in mice, indicating that there might be species-specific regulation by MIS of the enzymes involved in the testosterone biosynthetic pathway. Our results show that MIS can be used in vivo to lower testosterone production by mature rodent Leydig cells and suggest that MIS-mediated down-regulation of the expression of Cyp17, and perhaps P450scc, contributes to that effect.