Estradiol-induced expression of genetic information: synthesis of phosvitin in birds.

Several growth-promoting and developmental hormones stimulate the synthesis of RNA in their target tissues (for review, see ref. 1). In some cases, such as those of growth hormone and thyroid hormones, the effect is noticed with a lag period of several hours, whereas steroid hormones influence transcriptional processes within minutes of their administration. We shall dwell here more particularly on estrogens, the female ovarian hormones that exercise a marked growth-promoting effect on the organs of the female reproductive tract.