Preliminary study on changes of sex steroid hormones in periodic development of Whitmania pigra gonad

: The present study was conducted to investigate the rule of sex steroid hormones dynamic in the periodic development of Whitmania pigra gonad. The dynamic of sex steroid hormones in different age of Wh. pigra were detected by enzymolysis, extraction and UPLC-MS/MS. The results showed that the concentrations of estrone, estriol, testosterone and progesterone in the Wh. pigra showed M-type curve and peaked in 6-month-old Wh. pigra. The concentrations of above-mentioned four steroid hormones were the lowest in 9-month-old and then increased slightly. The another peaks of testosterone and progesterone were found in 2-month-old and the another peaks of estrone and estriol were obtained in 8-month-old. The concentrations of testosterone and progesterone are slightly higher than estriol during 1-month-old to 4-month-old, and thereafter strone and estriol showed higher concentration than testosterone and progesterone. In summary, the concentrations of four sex steroid hormones in Wh. pigra increased gradually with the maturation of gonads and decreased rapidly after the discharge period, which indicated that the ratio between estrogen, androgen and progesterone may be greatly related to the specificity of gonad development.