The purpose of this program is to test the hypothesis that the pathway, phospholipids to arachidonic acid to prostaglandins is involved in normal and abnormal sexual differentiation. We propose to do this by testing whether arachidonic acid and prostaglandins are able to correct the abnormal development of anogenetal distance induced by agents interfering with the actions of testosterone. We also propose to analyze the release of arachidonic acid, prostaglandin biosynthesis in the presence and absence of agents either including or interfering with masculine differentiation to correlate with the in vivo findings. Moreover, we plan to investigate whether testosterone induces phospholipase A2-stimulating protein (PLAP) in embryonic genitalia and whether PLAP can mimic the action of testosterone.
