Fig. 7.

Multi-cell RT-PCR analysis of mRNAs encoding rat MT1 and MT2 in adult male and female rat GnRH neurons. Cytoplasmic contents harvested from five GnRH neurons were pooled and reverse-transcribed to generate cDNA. The amount of cDNA corresponding to two GnRH neurons was examined with each of the primer pairs for rat MT1 and MT2. For GnRH transcripts, the amount of cDNA corresponding to one GnRH neuron was used. a Representative gel images of MT1 (upper panel), MT2 (middle panel), and GnRH (lower panel) mRNA expression in adult male rat GnRH neurons. The gels show the presence of MT1 and GnRH. MT2 expression was not detectable. “RT (–)” indicates cytosol from GnRH neurons treated without reverse transcriptase. The number on the right of each panel indicates the number of PCR cycles performed. b Expression patterns of rat MT1 and MT2 mRNAs in adult male and female rat GnRH neurons. The appearance of positive bands in the multi-cell RT-PCR experiments is shown as a percentage of the total reactions for MT1 and MT2 (n = 47, 235 GnRH neurons for male; n = 45, 225 GnRH neurons for female). The bands for MT2 were not detectable (n.d.) in GnRH neurons. GnRH was positive in all reactions