The effects of postnatal androgenic treatment in the female rat

✍ Scribed by Greene, R. R. ;Burrill, M. W. ;Ivy, A. C.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1942
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 698 KB
• Volume: 83
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-276X
• DOI: 10.1002/ar.1090830103

✦ Synopsis

I n studying the effects of sex hormones on sexual differentiation in the rat, the present authors have noted that the degree of masculinization caused by androgens depends on the period of embryonic development during which the treatment is administered (Burrill and Greene, '39 ; Greene, Rurrill and Ivy, '39). As one might expect, it was impossible to cause the development of masculine structures such as the vas deferens in the female if the anlage of this structure (wolffian duct) had already degenerated before treatment was started. Thus, after the sixteenth day of embryonic development, no amount of androgen injected into the pregnant female caused the development of a vas deferens in the female embryo.

Recently it has been reported (Selye, '40 a, b) that postnatal treatment of female rats with androgens caused "marked masculinization of the gonad and accessory sex organs . . . . in some cases an epididymis and a vas deferens developed.'' Development of an epididymis and a vas deferens in a female rat by treatment after birth seems inconsistent with the concept that structures cannot be caused to develop when their anlagen have already degenerated.

I n these same reports it was observed that the postnatal treatment of female rats with androgens caused atrophy of