Effects of adrenalectomy upon the ventral prostate glands in mice.

Abstract

The effects of adrenalectomy upon the ventral prostate glands of bc-strain albino mice were examined in the present study. Adrenalectomy was performed by the three step method in normal or castrated immature and normal or castrated adult male mice. The results obtained were summarized as follows.1) Epithelial cells of the ventral prostate glands decreased their height in both immature (about twenty-five days of age) and adult male mice after castration, and light areas disappeared from all cells except a few columnar cells of the ventral prostate epithelium. These columnar cells had light areas in their cytoplasm. Interstitial tissues of the ventral prostates increased in amount after castration.2) In castrated-adrenaleci omized male mice, both immature and adult especially in adult ones fifteen or more days following castration, cell height of the ventral prostate epithelium decreased again and the cells showed typical flattend shape, and light areas disappeared completely from their cytoplasm after adrenalectomy. This effect of adrenalectomy was more distinct in the castrated adult than in the castrated immature ones, and many pycontic nuclei were observed in the ventral prostate epithelial cells of the castrated-adrenalectomized adult animals. All these animals had well developed X-zones in their adrenals.3) Adrenalectomy exercised no recognizable effect upon the structure of the ventral postate glands in the normal adult male mice, from the adrenal cortices of which all X-zone cells disappeared except only a few residual cells. As all of the non-catrated, adrenalectomized immature male mice died after the second operations, no effect of adrenalectomy could be studied in them.4) Many fuchsinophilic granules of various forms were found in cytoplasm of the cells of X-zone after stained by the Ponceau-fuchsin method. These facts may suggest that X-zone of the male mouse adrenal cortex has some relationship to androgenic substances.