Obese mottled yellow Avy/a, lean pseudoagouti Avy/a and lean black a/a (YS X VY) F-1 hybrid female mice were fed diet containing 160 p.p.m. lindane (gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane) for 6, 12, 18 or 24 months. Clara cell hyperplasia was present in a majority of the mice after six months of lindane ingestion; however, more yellow mice (77%) than pseudoagouti (50%) or black (56%) mice had developed this lesion. Continued ingestion of lindane increased the incidence of Clara cell hyperplasia and resulted in similar prevalences in the three phenotypes. Lung tumors associated with lindane ingestion for 24 months were found only in yellow (19%) and pseudoagouti (14%) mice but not in the black mice. Prevalences of hepatocellular adenomas and carcinomas were very low (less than 10%) in untreated pseudoagouti and black mice. Lindane ingestion for 24 months resulted in an hepatocellular adenoma prevalence of 12% in pseudoagouti mice and 3% in black mice; comparable hepatocellular carcinoma prevalences were 5% and 1%. Among yellow mice fed lindane diet for 24 months, adenoma prevalence was 35% (9% among untreated controls) but carcinoma prevalence was only 17% (13% among controls). The tumorigenic responses evoked by lindane feeding in the lean pseudoagouti Avy/a mice but not in the black a/a mice indicate, for the first time, that the Avy gene itself, in the absence of obesity, sensitizes cells to transformation. The greater prevalence of hepatocellular adenomas in obese yellow Avy/a than in lean pseudoagouti Avy/a mice implicates obesity-associated factors in tumor promotion. Similarly, the increased prevalence of hepatocellular carcinomas in untreated obese yellow Avy/a mice, as compared to lean pseudoagouti mice, implicates obesity-associated factor as favoring histiotypic progression of liver tumors. Thus, the Avy gene not only sensitizes cells to respond to tumorigenic stimuli but also, by the induction of obesity, enhances promotion and progression of transformed cells.

The system for assigning cause of death in animal studies of carcinogenicity at the National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) is described. An empirical study of the NCTR's experience with its current cause-of-death assignment system based on selected representative experiments is reported. Issues investigated include the degree of confidence associated with histologic cause-of-death assignment, potential age-, dose-, and sex-related differences in assigned grades of certainty of cause of death, and frequencies of identification of various organ-specific and systemic diagnoses as the cause of death. Implications for age-adjusted statistical tests of carcinogenicity that require cause-of-death data are discussed.

BALB/c StCrlfC3Hf/Nctr, C57BL/6/, C57BL/6 X BALB/c F1 hybrid (B6CF1), and monohybrid-cross offspring from the breeding of B6CF1 mice were examined with respect to uterine, vaginal, and thymus responses to diethylstilbestrol (DES). About 400 mice of each genetic population were used. Weanling mice were fed DES at dietary concentrations of 2.5 to 1,000 ppb (microgram/kg feed) for 6 days and were killed by cervical dislocation about 20 hr after removal of the feed. C57BL/6, B6CF1, and the monohybrid-cross offspring did not differ in the uterine-weight response to DES, but the slope of the dose-response line was shallower for the BALB/c than for the other strains. Dietary DES concentrations of 250 ppb or more inhibited the uterotrophic response in all populations. Vaginal cornification occurred at lower concentrations of DES in the C57BL/6 strain than in the B6CF1 animals. BALB/c and monohybrid-cross offspring were indistinguishable from each other in their vaginal response to Des and were less sensitive to DES than the other mouse populations. The use of ethanol or corn oil as the solvent for mixing DES into the diet had no apparent effect on the uterine weight or vaginal response in any of the mice. DES depressed thymus weight in a dose-related fashion at dietary concentrations of 100 ppb and above in all genetic populations.

No abstract