Effects of hypophysectomy and growth hormone infusion on rat hepatic carbonic anhydrases.

Rat liver exhibits a reversed sexual dimorphism of its two endogenous soluble carbonic anhydrase (CA) isozymes, CA II and CA III. Normal males have hepatic CA III concentrations ten-twenty times those in the female, while female liver contains two-three times more CA II than the male. Hypophysectomy abolishes this sexual differentiation, having no effect on male liver but producing isozyme concentrations in the female liver similar to those in the male. Infusion of a continuous level of GH into male rats induces a female-like isozyme pattern for both CA II and CA III.