Fig. 1

c-kit and KITL isoforms are expressed in human ovary (a) c-kit isoforms, GNNK+ and GNNK−, were both present in ovarian cortex from three premenopausal women. Human leukaemia cell line K562 which expresses both isoforms was used as a positive control. (b) Western blot depicting a single 145 kDa band in human ovary and breast tissue lysates. CCRF-HSB-2 was used as a positive control and contains the 145kD band, representing glycosylated protein, as well as a smaller, 120kD, band representing non-glycosylated c-kit. (c) KITL protein isoform expression in the KGN human granulosa tumour cell line as a positive control, mural granulosa cells (MGC), cumulus cells (CC) and ovarian cortex containing some preantral follicles. Specific bands for KITL1 (36kD) and KITL2 (33kD) are present in all samples. An unknown 29kD band appears in the primary tissues but is absent in KGN cells. (d) Overnight incubation of the KITL antibody with its specific peptide demonstrates specificity