Birth control for cats is effective, but ‘ahead of its time’
For the first time, researchers have isolated a hormone that can prevent cats from getting pregnant. A single dose of a viral vector containing anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), a naturally occurring hormone, prevented ovulation and conception in female cats for at least two years, according to researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and their collaborators. The research is published in the latest issue of Nature Communications. During previous research to evaluate AMH as a method to protect ovarian reserve in women undergoing chemotherapy, senior author David Pépin, associate director of the Pediatric Surgical Research Laboratories at MGH, and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, discovered that raising the level of AMH beyond a certain threshold suppressed the growth of ovarian follicles, effectively preventing ovulation and conception. “AMH (also known as Müllerian inhibiting substance, or MIS) is a naturally occurring non-steroidal hormone produced by the ovaries in human females and other mammals, and in the testes in males,”...