Nuclear Matrix in Apoptotic Cell Death and Cell Proliferation. The role of Nuclear Mitotic Apparatus (NuMA) Protein

The nucleus is a membrane enclosed organelle containing most of the genetic information of the cell in the form of chromatin. The nucleus, which can be divided into many sub-organelles such as the nucleoli, the Cajal bodies and the nuclear lamina, is the site for several essential cellular functions such as the DNA replication and its regulation and most of the RNA synthesis and processing. The nucleus is often affected in disease: the size and the shape of the nucleus, the chromatin distribution and the size of the nucleoli have remained the basis for the grading of several cancers. The maintenance of the vertebrate body shape depends on the skeleton. Similarly, in a smaller context, the shape of the cell and the nucleus are mainly regulated by the cytoskeletal and nucleoskeletal elements. The nuclear matrix, which by definition is a detergent, DNase and salt resistant proteinaceous nuclear structure, has been suggested to form the nucleoskeleton responsible for the nuclear integrity. Nuclear mitotic apparatus protein, NuMA, a component of the nuclear matrix, is better known for its mitotic spindle organizing function. NuMA is one of the nuclear matrix proteins suggested to participate in the maintenance of the nuclear integrity during interphase but its interphase function has not been solved to date. This thesis study concentrated on the role of NuMA and the nuclear matrix as structural and functional components of the interphase nucleus. The first two studies clarified the essential role of caspase-3 in the disintegration of the nuclear structures during apoptosis. The second study also showed NuMA and chromatin to co-elute from cells in significant amounts and the apoptotic cleavage of NuMA was clarified to have an important role in the dissociation of NuMA from the chromatin. The third study concentrated on the interphase function of NuMA showing NuMA depletion to result in cell cycle arrest and the cytoplasmic relocalization of NuMA interaction partner GAS41. We suggest that the relocalization of the transcription factor GAS41 may mediate the cell cycle arrest. Thus, this study has given new aspects in the interactions of NuMA, chromatin and the nuclear matrix.

Of pearls and pigs : a conceptual-semantic Tiernet approach to formal representation of structure and variation of phraseological units

"Helmiä sioille", pärlor för svin, säger man på finska om någonting bra och fint som tas emot av en mottagare som inte vill eller har ingen förmåga att förstå, uppskatta eller utnyttja hela den potential som finns hos det mottagna föremålet, är ointresserad av den eller gillar den inte. För sådana relativt stabila flerordiga uttryck, som är lagrade i språkbrukarnas minnen och som demonstrerar olika slags oregelbundna drag i sin struktur använder man inom lingvistiken bl.a. termerna "idiom" eller "fraseologiska enheter". Som en oregelbundenhet kan man t.ex. beskriva det faktum att betydelsen hos uttrycket inte är densamma som man skulle komma till ifall man betraktade det som en vanlig regelbunden fras. En annan oregelbundenhet, som idiomforskare har observerat, ligger i den begränsade förmågan att varieras i form och betydelse, som många idiom har jämfört med regelbundna fraser. Därför talas det ofta om "grundform" och "grundbetydelse" hos idiom och variationen avses som avvikelse från dessa. Men när man tittar på ett stort antal förekomstexempel av idiom i språkbruk, märker man att många av dem tillåter variation, t.o.m. i sådan utsträckning att gränserna mellan en variant och en "grundform" suddas ut, och istället för ett idiom råkar vi plötsligt på en "familj" av flera besläktade uttryck. Allt detta väcker frågan om hur dessa uttryck egentligen ska vara representerade i språket. I avhandlingen utförs en kritisk granskning av olika tidigare tillvägagångssätt att beskriva fraseologiska enheter i syfte att klargöra vilka svårigheter deras struktur och variation erbjuder för den lingvistiska teorin. Samtidigt presenteras ett alternativt sätt att beskriva dessa uttryck. En systematisk och formell modell som utvecklas i denna avhandling integrerar en beskrivning av idiom på många olika språkliga nivåer och skildrar deras variation i form av ett nätverk och som ett resultat av samspel mellan idiomets struktur och kontexter där det förekommer, samt av interaktion med andra fasta uttryck. Modellen bygger på en fördjupande, språkbrukbaserad analys av det finska idiomet "X HEITTÄÄ HELMIÄ SIOILLE" (X kastar pärlor för svin).

Upconverting Phosphor Technology: Exceptional Photoluminescent Properties Light Up Homogeneous Bioanalytical Assays

The aim of the present study was to demonstrate the wide applicability of the novel photoluminescent labels called upconverting phosphors (UCPs) in proximity-based bioanalytical assays. The exceptional features of the lanthanide-doped inorganic UCP compounds stem from their capability for photon upconversion resulting in anti-Stokes photoluminescence at visible wavelengths under near-infrared (NIR) excitation. Major limitations related to conventional photoluminescent labels are avoided, rendering the UCPs a competitive next-generation label technology. First, the background luminescence is minimized due to total elimination of autofluorescence. Consequently, improvements in detectability are expected. Second, at the long wavelengths (>600 nm) used for exciting and detecting the UCPs, the transmittance of sample matrixes is significantly greater in comparison with shorter wavelengths. Colored samples are no longer an obstacle to the luminescence measurement, and more flexibility is allowed even in homogeneous assay concepts, where the sample matrix remains present during the entire analysis procedure, including label detection. To transform a UCP particle into a biocompatible label suitable for bioanalytical assays, it must be colloidal in an aqueous environment and covered with biomolecules capable of recognizing the analyte molecule. At the beginning of this study, only UCP bulk material was available, and it was necessary to process the material to submicrometer-sized particles prior to use. Later, the ground UCPs, with irregular shape, wide size-distribution and heterogeneous luminescence properties, were substituted by a smaller-sized spherical UCP material. The surface functionalization of the UCPs was realized by producing a thin hydrophilic coating. Polymer adsorption on the UCP surface is a simple way to introduce functional groups for bioconjugation purposes, but possible stability issues encouraged us to optimize an optional silica-encapsulation method which produces a coating that is not detached in storage or assay conditions. An extremely thin monolayer around the UCPs was pursued due to their intended use as short-distance energy donors, and much attention was paid to controlling the thickness of the coating. The performance of the UCP technology was evaluated in three different homogeneous resonance energy transfer-based bioanalytical assays: a competitive ligand binding assay, a hybridization assay for nucleic acid detection and an enzyme activity assay. To complete the list, a competitive immunoassay has been published previously. Our systematic investigation showed that a nonradiative energy transfer mechanism is indeed involved, when a UCP and an acceptor fluorophore are brought into close proximity in aqueous suspension. This process is the basis for the above-mentioned homogeneous assays, in which the distance between the fluorescent species depends on a specific biomolecular binding event. According to the studies, the submicrometer-sized UCP labels allow versatile proximity-based bioanalysis with low detection limits (a low-nanomolar concentration for biotin, 0.01 U for benzonase enzyme, 0.35 nM for target DNA sequence).

Bag-of-Features Approach to Unsupervised Visual Object Categorisation

The large and growing number of digital images is making manual image search laborious. Only a fraction of the images contain metadata that can be used to search for a particular type of image. Thus, the main research question of this thesis is whether it is possible to learn visual object categories directly from images. Computers process images as long lists of pixels that do not have a clear connection to high-level semantics which could be used in the image search. There are various methods introduced in the literature to extract low-level image features and also approaches to connect these low-level features with high-level semantics. One of these approaches is called Bag-of-Features which is studied in the thesis. In the Bag-of-Features approach, the images are described using a visual codebook. The codebook is built from the descriptions of the image patches using clustering. The images are described by matching descriptions of image patches with the visual codebook and computing the number of matches for each code. In this thesis, unsupervised visual object categorisation using the Bag-of-Features approach is studied. The goal is to find groups of similar images, e.g., images that contain an object from the same category. The standard Bag-of-Features approach is improved by using spatial information and visual saliency. It was found that the performance of the visual object categorisation can be improved by using spatial information of local features to verify the matches. However, this process is computationally heavy, and thus, the number of images must be limited in the spatial matching, for example, by using the Bag-of-Features method as in this study. Different approaches for saliency detection are studied and a new method based on the Hessian-Affine local feature detector is proposed. The new method achieves comparable results with current state-of-the-art. The visual object categorisation performance was improved by using foreground segmentation based on saliency information, especially when the background could be considered as clutter.

Tekijännimet Mikael Agricolan teosten kielessä. Henkilötarkoitteisten johdosten merkitykset, funktiot ja rakenteet

My research deals with agent nouns in the language of the works of Mikael Agricola (ca. 1510–1557). The main tasks addressed in my thesis have been to describe individual agent noun types, to provide a comprehensive picture of the category of agent nouns and to clarify the relations between different types of agent nouns. My research material consists of all the agent nouns referring to persons in the language of Agricola’s works, together with their context. The language studied is for the most part translated language. Agent nouns play an important role both in the vocabulary of natural language and in broader sentence structures, since in a text it is constantly necessary to refer to actors re-ferring to persons in the text. As a concept and a phenomenon, the agent noun is widely known in languages. It is a word formed with a certain derivational affixes, which typical-ly refers to a person. In my research the agent noun category includes both deverbal and denominal derivatives referring to persons, e.g. kirjoittaa > kirjoittaja (to write > writer), asua > asuva (to inhabit > inhabitant), imeä > imeväinen (to suck > suckling), juopua > juopunut (to drink > drunkard), pelätä > pelkuri (to fear > one who fears ‘a coward’), apu > apulainen (help/to help > helper); lammas > lampuri (sheep > shepherd). Besides original Finnish expressions, agent noun derivatives taken as such from foreign languages form a word group of central importance for the research (e.g. nikkari, porvari, ryöväri, based on the German/Swedish for carpenter, burgher, robber). Especially important for the formation of agent nouns in Finnish are the models offered by foreign languages. The starting point for my work is predominantly semantic, as both the criteria for collecting the material and the categorisation underlying the analysis of the material are based on semantic criteria. When examining derivatives, aspects relating to structure are also inevitably of central importance, as form and meaning are closely associated with each other in this type of vocabulary. The alliance of structure and meaning can be described in an illustrative manner with the help of structural schemata. The examination of agent nouns comprises on the one hand analysis of syntactic elements and on the other, study of cultural words in their most typical form. The latter aspect offers a research object in which language and the extralinguistic world, referents, their designations and cultural-historical reality are in concrete terms one and the same. Thus both the agent noun types that follow the word formation principles of the Finn-ish language and those of foreign origin borrowed as a whole into Finnish illustrate very well how an expression of a certain origin and formed according to a certain structural model is inseparably bound up with the background of its referent and in general with semantic factors. This becomes evident both on the level of the connection between cer-tain linguistic features and text genre and in relation to cultural words referring to per-sons. For example, the model for the designations of God based on agent nouns goes back thousands of years and is still closely linked in 16th century literature with certain text genres. This brings out the link between the linguistic feature and the genre in a very con-crete manner. A good example of the connection between language and the extralinguistic world is provided by the cultural vocabulary referring to persons. Originally Finnish agent noun derivatives are associated with an agrarian society, while the vocabulary relat-ing to mediaeval urbanisation, the Hansa trade and specialisation by trade or profession is borrowed and originates in its entirety from vocabulary that was originally German.

Mild developmental dyslexia in university students: diagnosis and performance features in L1, L2, and L3

Avhandling visar att lindrig dyslexi påverkar läs- och skrivprestationer hos högpresterare. Särdrag träder tydligast fram i främmande språk och vid hantering av språkljud i krävande testuppgifter. Även om dyslexirelaterade problem vanligtvis är lindriga hos universitetsstudenter, är det centralt att dessa identifieras, eftersom de ses påverka akademiska prestationer. Avhandlingen lägger fram det första finlandssvenska dyslexitestet normerat för universitetsnivå (FS-DUVAN) och ger verktyg för utredning av läs- och skrivsvårigheter hos unga vuxna i Svenskfinland. Avhandlingen utforskar också språkspecifika särdrag av dyslexi hos högpresterande finlandssvenska universitetsstudenter i läs- och skrivuppgifter i svenska, finska och engelska. Detaljerade felanalyser visar att studenter med dyslexi speciellt har problem med kopplingar mellan språkljud och bokstav i det främmande språket engelska, som också i detta avseende är komplext. Resultat i komplexa kognitiva testuppgifter som förutsätter hantering av språkljud pekar på svikt i fonologisk processering, som betecknas som den huvudsakliga underliggande kognitiva nedsättningen vid utvecklingsbetingad dyslexi.

Determining the concrete stiffness matrix through ultrasonic testing

The determination of the modulus tangent (Eci ) and of the modulus secant (Ecs) of the concrete can be done using compression test but, to be simpler, it is used relations with characteristic strength (f ck). Relations are also used to determine the transversal modulus (Gc) and, in the case of the Poisson's ratio (ν), a fixed value 0.20 is established. The objective of this research was to evaluate the use of the ultrasonic propagation waves to determine these properties. For the tests were used specimens with f ck varying from 10 to 35 MPa. For the ultrasonic tests were used cylindrical and cubic specimens. The modulus of deformation obtained by ultrasound was statistically equivalent to the obtained by compression tests. The results of modules obtained using the relations with f ck was far away from those obtained by ultrasound or by compression tests. The Poisson's ratio obtained by ultrasound was superior to the fixed value. We can conclude that the concrete characterization by ultrasound is consistent and, to this characterization the cylindrical specimen, normally used to determine f ck, can be used.

Tavoitevarastoarvojen määrittäminen uusille tuotteille - case: päivittäistavarakaupan yritys

Tämän tutkielman tarkoituksena oli löytää keinoja uusien tuotteiden tavoitevarastoarvojen määrittämisen helpottamiseksi case-yrityksessä. Ongelma on seurausta siitä, ettei uusille tuotteille ole saatavissa kysyntädataa. Oikeelliset tavoitevarastoarvot on tärkeitä case-yritykselle hävikin minimoimisen ja erityisesti asiakastyytyväisyyden vuoksi. Tutkittavaa aihetta lähestyttiin päivittäistavarakaupan strategisten menestystekijöiden sekä varastonhallinnan kautta. Teoriaosuuden pohjalta toteutettiin empiirinen osio, jossa etsittiin case-yrityksen kahden tuoteryhmän kysyntää selittäviä tekijöitä paneeliregression avulla. Ensin kuitenkin tutkittiin tuoteryhmien yleistä kysynnän rakennetta erilaisten kysyntäkuvaajien sekä korrelaatiomatriisien avulla. Tavoitevarastoarvoon eniten vaikuttava tekijä on kysyntä. Brändi ja hinta muodostuivat puolestaan vahvimmiksi kysyntää määrittäviksi muuttujiksi. Kysyntää arvioitaessa muut sitä nostavat muuttujat tulee aina miettiä tapauskohtaisesti. Mehukeitoilla kysyntää nostivat eniten vahva brändi ja suuri pakkauskoko. Juustoraasteilla puolestaan alhainen hinta ja pieni pakkauskoko olivat keskeisimmät myyntiin vaikuttavat tekijät. Tuoteryhmien muut kysyntää nostavat ominaisuudet olivat samoja, kuin tuoteryhmän suosituimmilla tuotteilla.

A platform for anti-biofilm assays combining viability, biomass and matrix quantifications in susceptibility assessments of antimicrobials against Staphylococcus aureus biofilms

Bacteria can exist as planktonic, the lifestyle in which single cells exist in suspension, and as biofilms, which are surface-attached bacterial communities embedded in a selfproduced matrix. Most of the antibiotics and the methods for antimicrobial work have been developed for planktonic bacteria. However, the majority of the bacteria in natural habitats live as biofilms. Biofilms develop dauntingly fast high resistance towards conventional antibacterial treatments and thus, there is a great need to meet the demands of effective anti-biofilm therapy. In this thesis project it was attempted to fill the void of anti-biofilm screening methods by developing a platform of assays that evaluate the effect that screened compounds have on the total biomass, viability and the extracellular polysaccharide (EPS) layer of the biofilms. Additionally, a new method for studying biofilms and their interactions with compounds in a continuous flow system was developed using capillary electrochromatography (CEC). The screening platform was utilized with a screening campaign using a small library of cinchona alkaloids. The assays were optimized to be statistically robust enough for screening. The first assay, based on crystal violet staining, measures total biofilm biomass, and it was automated using a liquid handling workstation to decrease the manual workload and signal variation. The second assay, based on resazurin staining, measures viability of the biofilm, and it was thoroughly optimized for the strain used, but was then a very simple and fast method to be used for primary screening. The fluorescent resazurin probe is not toxic to the biofilms. In fact, it was also shown in this project that staining the biofilms with resazurin prior to staining with crystal violet had no effect on the latter and they can be used in sequence on the same screening plate. This sequential addition step was indeed a major improvement on the use of reagents and consumables and also shortened the work time. As a third assay in the platform a wheat germ agglutinin based assay was added to evaluate the effect a compound has on the EPS layer. Using this assay it was found that even if compounds might have clear effect on both biomass and viability, the EPS layer can be left untouched or even be increased. This is a clear implication of the importance of using several assays to be able to find “true hits” in a screening setting. In the pilot study of screening for antimicrobial and anti-biofilm effects using a cinchona alkaloid library, one compound was found to have antimicrobial effect against planktonic bacteria and prevent biofilm formation at low micromolar concentration. To eradicate biofilms, a higher concentration was needed. It was also shown that the chemical space occupied by the active compound was slightly different than the rest of the cinchona alkaloids as well as the rest of the compounds used for validatory screening during the optimization processes of the separate assays.

Immunohistochemical evaluation of fibrillar components of the extracellular matrix of transversalis fascia and anterior abdominal rectus sheath in men with inguinal hernia

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the role of fibrillar extracellular matrix components in the pathogenesis of inguinal hernias. METHODS: samples of the transverse fascia and of the anterior sheath of the rectus abdominis muscle were collected from 40 men aged between 20 and 60 years with type II and IIIA Nyhus inguinal hernia and from 10 fresh male cadavers (controls) without hernia in the same age range. The staining technique was immunohistochemistry for collagen I, collagen III and elastic fibers; quantification of fibrillar components was performed with an image analysis processing software. RESULTS: no statistically significant differences were found in the amount of elastic fibers, collagen I and collagen III, and the ratio of collagen I / III among patients with inguinal hernia when compared with subjects without hernia. CONCLUSION: the amount of fibrillar extracellular matrix components did not change in patients with and without inguinal hernia.

Comparison of nuclear grade and immunohistochemical features in situ and invasive components of ductal carcinoma of breast

PURPOSE:To compare the prognostic and predictive features between in situ and invasive components of ductal breast carcinomas. METHODS:We selected 146 consecutive breast samples with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) associated with adjacent invasive breast carcinoma (IBC). We evaluated nuclear grade and immunohistochemical expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), cytokeratin 5/6 (CK5/6), and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in both components, in situ and invasive, and the Ki-67 percentage of cells in the invasive part. The DCIS and IBC were classified in molecular surrogate types determined by the immunohistochemical profile as luminal (RE/PR-positive/ HER2-negative), triple-positive (RE/RP/HER2-positive), HER2-enriched (ER/PR-negative/HER2-positive), and triple-negative (RE/RP/HER2-negative). Discrimination between luminal A and luminal B was not performed due to statistical purposes. Correlations between the categories in the two groups were made using the Spearman correlation method. RESULTS:There was a significant correlation between nuclear grade (p<0.0001), expression of RE/RP (p<0.0001), overexpression of HER2 (p<0.0001), expression of EGFR (p<0.0001), and molecular profile (p<0.0001) between components in situ and IBC. CK 5/6 showed different distribution in DCIS and IBC, presenting a significant association with the triple-negative phenotype in IBC, but a negative association among DCIS. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that classical prognostic and predictive features of IBC are already determined in the preinvasive stage of the disease. However the role of CK5/6 in invasive carcinoma may be different from the precursor lesions.

Aspectos clinicopatológicos de 620 casos neurológicos de cinomose em cães: Clinicopathological features in 620 neurological cases of canine distemper

Os protocolos de 5.361 necropsias de cães realizadas no Laboratório de Patologia Veterinária da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria de 1965 a 2006 foram revisados à procura de casos de cinomose. Seiscentos e oitenta e três casos (12,7%) da doença foram encontrados, dos quais 620 apresentavam sinais neurológicos. Desses 620, os seguintes dados foram recuperados para cada caso: idade, sinais clínicos, achados histopatológicos e presença ou não de doença concomitante. Faixas etárias foram classificadas como filhotes (até 1 ano), adultos (de 1 a 9 anos) e idosos (10 anos de idade ou mais). Lesões histológicas foram observadas em 565 (91,1%) dos 620 casos com sinais neurológicos de cinomose e em 554 desses casos a idade foi registrada no protocolo com a seguinte distribuição por faixa etária: 45,9% de filhotes, 51,4% de adultos e 2,7% de idosos. Os sinais neurológicos compreendiam um largo espectro de distúrbios motores, posturais e do comportamento, que podiam ocorrer juntos ou individualmente. Os sinais clínicos mais freqüentes foram mioclonia (38,4%), incooordenação motora (25,0%), convulsões (18,5%) e paraplegia (13,4%). Em 98,4% dos 565 cães com alterações histopatológicas no encéfalo, foram observadas desmielinização, encefalite não-supurativa ou uma combinação dessas duas lesões. Corpúsculos de inclusão foram observados em diferentes células de 343 dos 565 cães com alterações histopatológicas no encéfalo. Em 170 (49,6%) o tipo celular com inclusão não foi mencionado no protocolo; nos restantes, as inclusões foram vistas em astrócitos (94,8% dos casos), neurônios (3,5%), oligodendrócitos (1,1%) e células do epêndima (0,6%). Levando em consideração o tipo de lesões e as faixas etárias, casos com desmielinização e encefalite não-supurativa ocorreram em 40,0% dos filhotes, 51,2% dos adultos e 72,7% dos cães idosos. Somente desmielinização foi descrita em 48,4% dos filhotes, 41,3% dos adultos e 35,7% dos cães idosos. Somente encefalite não-supurativa foi descrita em 11,6% dos filhotes, 7,5% dos adultos e 7,1% dos cães idosos.

Experimental poisoning by Senecio brasiliensis in calves: quantitative and semi-quantitative study on changes in the hepatic extracellular matrix and sinusoidal cells

Extracellular matrix plays an important role in chronic hepatic lesions and has been studied in experimental intoxication models. However in cattle, studies on chronic disease have focused on the hepatocellular damage and extracellular matrix (ECM) changes are usually overlooked. There are no specific studies on the hepatic ECM in either normal or chronically damaged bovine liver. Thus an experimental model of hepatic toxicity model using Senecio brasiliensis poisoned calves was designed. Senecio brasiliensis contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids which cause either acute or chronic progressive dose dependent liver damage. Five calves were orally fed with 0.38g of dry leaves of S. brasiliensis/kg/day for 24 days. Liver needle biopsy specimens were obtained every 15 days for 60 days. Clinical signs of digestive complications appeared at 3rd week. One calf died on 45th day and four were evaluated up to 60th day. Biopsy samples were processed for routine light microscopy, immuno-histochemistry and transmission electron microscopy. From 30th day on progressive liver damage characterized by hepatocellular ballooning, necrosis, apoptosis and megalocytosis, centrilobular, pericellular and portal fibrosis were seen by light microscopy. Quantitative and semi-quantitative measurements of hepatic ECM components were performed before and after the onset of lesions. Morphometric analysis of total collagen and elastic fiber system was conducted. Total collagen and I and III collagen types progressively increased in throughout the liver of affected calves. Changes in location, amount and disposition of the elastic fiber system were also observed. Then numbers of Kupffer cells were significantly increased at 30th day and total numbers of sinusoidal cells were significantly increased at 45th and 60th days. Liver damage was progressive and irreversible even after the exposure to the plant was discontinued. Severe fibrotic lesions occurred mainly in portal tracts, followed by veno-occlusive and pericellular fibrosis. Collagen types I and III s were present in every normal and damaged liver, with predominance of type I. In affected calves the increase of total collagen and elastic fibers system paralleled the number of total sinusoidal cells.

Morphological features and vascularization study of caprine cyclic corpus luteum

Corpus luteum is a temporary endocrine gland that regulates either the estrous cycle and pregnancy. It presents extreme dependency on the adequate blood supply. This work aims to evaluate goat corpus luteum (CL) vascular density (VD) over the estrous cycle. For that purpose, 20 females were submitted to estrus synchronization/ovulation treatment using a medroxyprogesterone intra-vaginal sponge as well as intramuscular (IM) application of cloprostenol and equine chorionic gonadotrophine (eCG). After sponge removal, estrus was identified at about 72hs. Once treatment was over, female goats were then subdivided into 4 groups (n=5 each) and slaughtered on days 2, 12, 16 and 22 after ovulation (p.o). Ovaries were collected, withdrawn and weighted. CL and ovaries had size and area recorded. Blood samples were collected and the plasma progesterone (P4) was measured through RIA commercial kits. The VD was 24.42±6.66, 36.26±5.61, 8.59±2.2 and 3.97±1.12 vessels/mm² for days 2, 12, 16 and 22 p.o, respectively. Progesterone plasma concentrations were 0.49±0.08, 2.63±0.66, 0.61±0.14 and 0.22±0.04ng/ml for days 2, 12, 16 e 22 p.o, respectively. Studied parameters were affected by the estrous cycle phase. Values greater than 12 p.o were observed. In the present work we observed that ovulation occurred predominantly in the right ovary (70% of the animals), which in turn presented bigger measures than the contra lateral one. There is a meaningful relationship between the weight and size of the ovary and these of CL (r=0.87, r=0.70, respectively, p<0.05). It is possible to conclude that morphology of goat's ovaries and plasma progesterone concentration changed according to estrous cycle stages. We propose these parameters can be used as indicators of CL functional activity.