Abstract Progesterone (P4) can participate in the development of female mammalian antral follicles through nuclear receptor (PGR). In this experiment, the differences of P4 synthesis and PGR expression in different developmental stages of sheep antral follicles (large > 5mm, medium 2-5mm, small < 2mm) were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, immunohistochemistry, qRT-PCR and Western blotting. Secondly, sheep follicular granulosa cells were cultured in vitro. The effects of different concentrations of FSH and LH on P4 synthesis and PGR expression were studied. The results showed that acute steroid regulatory protein (StAR), cholesterol side chain lyase (P450scc) and 3β Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3β-HSD) and PGR were expressed in antral follicles, and with the development of antral follicles in sheep, StAR, P450scc and the expression of 3β-HSD and PGR increased significantly. In vitro experiments showed that FSH and LH alone or together treatment could regulate P4 secretion and PGR expression in sheep follicular granulosa cells to varying degrees, hint P4 and PGR by FSH and LH, and LH was the main factor. Our results supplement the effects of FSH and LH on the regulation of P4 synthesis during follicular development, which provides new data for further study of steroid synthesis and function in follicular development.

In this work, the effect of C4+ and Cl4+ ion irradiation with 25 MeV energy on the hardness and shear banding feature of Ti40Zr25Be30Cr5 bulk metallic glass was studied. Depth-sensing nanoindetation and microindentation were applied for characterizing the multiple-scaled hardness and shear band patterns during plastic deformation. It is shown that the Cl4+ ion irradiation leads to an obvious softening of the sample surface, and distinctly affects the serrated flow feature during plastic deformation. In contrast, C4+ ions have little effect on the hardness and shear band patterns. Besides, the mechanism for the change of the mechanical properties and plastic deformation behavior after ion irradiation was also discussed.