Abstract
The thesis is presented as a series of chapters and with the exception of chapter one, each has a discussion section and is complete in itself. The first chapter is an introduction to the human prostate covering its development and structure, and the nature of benign hyperplasia and its effects on the urinary system. Some aspects of research into the disease and their shortcomings are mentioned, together with modern surgical and other treatments. The next chapter covers a histochemical study of human benign prostatic hyperplasia. In it levels and sites of hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases, aminopeptidase, acid phosphatase and cholesterol are examined and compared with those of normal tissue from young men. The third chapter is an extension of the histochemistry where the prostate is examined for endogenous steroids using immunofluorescence. For this purpose, steroid antisera were developed in guineapigs by injecting them with steroids that had been chemically bound to bovine serum albumin. In a controlled technique these antisera, when used in conjunction with fluorescently labelled anti-guineapig globulin, demonstrated androgen binding sites and sites of androgen production. Chapter four describes an electrophoretic study of aminopeptidases and acid phosphatase extracted from normal and hyperplastic prostates. By this means six different peptidases and over twenty bands of acid phosphatase were examined. The chapter also covers measurement of total and ester cholesterol in young, old but non-hyperplastic, and hyperplastic prostates. The following chapter covers the metabolism of testosterone in human prostate during six hour organ cultures and describes how eight metabolites were carefully separated and studied. Two different culture media are compared and. varying degrees of tissue binding are shown by the metabolites. Chapter six covers the changes that occur in organ cultures when cyproterone, cyproterone acetate and stilboestrol were included in small quantities. The final chapter is a discussion of all the investigations covered.