The guinea pig seminal vesicle epithelium is an androgen-dependent tissue that synthesizes and secretes four major secretory proteins (SVP 1-4). Our previous work has demonstrated that the four secretory proteins are cleaved from two primary translation products in a complex series of protein processing reactions. Castration reduces the efficiency of protein processing, and leads to the accumulation of processing intermediates in the lumen of the seminal vesicle. We have shown that at least one of the androgen-sensitive processing reactions is a proteolytic cleavage. We now plan to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of specific protease activity by androgens. Further structural analysis of the processing intermediates will also be performed, with the goal of identifying other androgen-sensitive processing steps. Since our work suggests that androgens also influence other levels of gene regulation in the seminal vesicle, we also plan to pursue studies of the regulation of transcription and translation in this system. We anticipate that this work give us a more comprehensive understanding of how steroids can influence the expression of specific genes.
