The adult human female prostata homologue and the male prostate gland: a comparative enzyme-histochemical study.

Selected conventional and special histochemical methods were used to investigate the distribution and activity of 7 hydrolytic enzymes and 8 oxidoreductases in paraurethral glands and ducts, the female prostate and the male prostate. Comparative histochemical study revealed a corresponding distribution and also a virtually consonant activity of the same enzymes in the glands of the male and female prostate. In either group of the enzymes examined there was not a single case that an enzyme characteristically present in the glandular cells of the acini of the male prostate would be absent in the structure of the female prostatic tissue, so far referred to as "vestigial" or "rudimentary". The observed corresponding enzymic equipment of the male and female prostatic tissue may provide the basis for the "histochemical concept of male and female prostate homology", which could suitably supplement the present only embryologically understood homology between the paraurethral glands and ducts so as to consider them the female prostate and the male prostate.