Human benign prostatic hyperplasia tissue is able to synthesize immunoreactive FSH (IR FSH) in vitro. The prostatic FSH is similar to pituitary FSH as evident by co-elution on Sephadex G-100. High performance gel filtration chromatography and Western blot analysis. Immunocytochemical localization studies indicate positive staining in the cytoplasm of prostatic epithelial cells. There is a two fold increase in the concentration of immunoreactive FSH in benign hyperplastic tissue as compared to normal prostate.