{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,4]],"date-time":"2026-07-04T08:11:28Z","timestamp":1783152688524,"version":"3.54.6"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,1]],"date-time":"2025-08-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1754006400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/pages\/standard-publication-reuse-rights"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,14]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Follicle-stimulating hormone is the primary gonadotropin regulating ovarian follicular development and is widely utilized in assisted reproduction. Our previous research indicated that different glycoforms of the follicle-stimulating hormone Beta-subunit influence follicular development in vivo, but their specific roles across various folliculogenesis stages remained unclear. In this study, we compared two commercial follicle-stimulating hormone preparations: pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone, which contains both fully and hypo- glycosylated Beta-subunit forms, and recombination follicle-stimulating hormone, predominantly consisting of fully glycosylated forms. Using an in vitro follicular culture model, we observed that pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone was more effective than recombination follicle-stimulating hormone in stimulating follicular growth and promoting antrum formation in preantral follicles. Pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone also rescued insufficient preantral follicle growth and antrum formation caused by recombination follicle-stimulating hormone. Besides, pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone more efficiently drove small antral follicle growth than recombination follicle-stimulating hormone. Additionally, pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone significantly increased the granulosa cells proliferation and effectively inhibited apoptosis, thereby protecting growing follicles from atresia. Pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone also induced higher steroidogenesis than recombination follicle-stimulating hormone. Mechanistically, pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone activated key downstream signaling including protein kinase A\/cAMP-response element binding protein, mitogen-activated protein kinase\/extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase\/AKT more efficiently than recombination follicle-stimulating hormone. Importantly, pre-treating antral follicles with pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone significantly improved ovulation rate following human chorionic gonadotropin administration. This was linked to a rapid upregulation of luteinizing hormone\/choriogonadotropin receptor expression and enhanced mitogen-activated protein kinase\/extracellular signal-regulated kinase signaling activity. Collectively, our data support that pituitary-derived follicle-stimulating hormone, with its mixture of fully and hypo-glycosylated forms, has greater bioactivity in promoting preantral\u2013antral transition, antral follicle growth, and ovulation compared to recombination follicle-stimulating hormone, which mainly consists of fully glycosylated follicle-stimulating hormone. Application of mixed glycoforms or hypo-glycosylated follicle-stimulating hormone may improve the outcomes in assisted reproduction.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/biolre\/ioaf173","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,31]],"date-time":"2025-07-31T11:39:25Z","timestamp":1753961965000},"page":"1182-1195","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Pituitary-derived Follicle stimulating hormone has greater follicle-stimulating bioactivity than recombinant Follicle stimulating hormone possibly due to glycoform variants"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"113","author":[{"given":"Zihui","family":"Wu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]},{"name":"Frontiers Science Center for Animal Breeding and Sustainable Production, Huazhong Agricultural University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]},{"name":"Hubei Hongshan Laboratory , Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. \u00a0","place":["China"]},{"name":"National Center for International Research on Animal Genetics , Breeding and Reproduction, Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. \u00a0","place":["China"]},{"name":"Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences , Shenzhen ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Nan","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiabin","family":"Tang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Linghua","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xinrui","family":"Zhou","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Menglei","family":"Jiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiarui","family":"Cheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xuedan","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Miaoyu","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Liguo","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"John S","family":"Davis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Olson Center for Women\u2019s Health, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Nebraska Medical Center , Omaha, Nebraska ,","place":["USA"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6900-1023","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Guohua","family":"Hua","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Animal Science and Technology, Key Laboratory of Agriculture Animal Genetics, Breeding and Reproduction, Ministry of Education, Huazhong Agriculture University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]},{"name":"Frontiers Science Center for Animal Breeding and Sustainable Production, Huazhong Agricultural University , Wuhan, Hubei ,","place":["P.R. China"]},{"name":"Hubei Hongshan Laboratory , Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. \u00a0","place":["China"]},{"name":"National Center for International Research on Animal Genetics , Breeding and Reproduction, Wuhan, Hubei, P.R. \u00a0","place":["China"]},{"name":"Shenzhen Branch, Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, Genome Analysis Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences , Shenzhen ,","place":["P.R. 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