Adrenal corticoids induce pineal gland stimulation associated with adrenocortical inhibition of karyomorphology cell proliferation and hormone milieu in male mice (mus musculus)

Abstract

Background. Pineal and adrenocortical cell morphology, dynamics, hormonal analysis and function in response to both natural and synthetic corticoids awaits in depth investigation in mammals.Aim. To investigate the pineal responsiveness to corticoid treatment from combined morphological and hormonal studies in postpubertal male mice.Material and methods. Three groups, each with 14 mice were used as control (C) or treated with the natural corticoid, hydrocortisone (HYC) at a dose of 4 mg/100 g.b.w. and synthetic corticoid, dexamethasone (DEX) at a dose of 4 mg/100 g.b.w. for ten consecutive days.Results. The treatment induced inverse changes in pineal-adrenocortical karyomorphology, cell proliferation (mitotic percentage M%) and hormonal milieu. Whereas both these corticoids caused pineal stimulation as evidenced from significantly increased nuclear diameter (μm) values (C 3.35 ± 0.05, HYC 4.77 ± 0.02, DEX 4.59 ± 0.04, p<0.001) and cell proliferation (M%) (C 1.11 ± 0.09, HYC 1.59 ± 0.07, DEX 1.44 ± 0.05, p<0.01), the changes induced in adrenocortical nuclear diameter in all the zones (p<0.001), cell proliferation (M%) (C 1.38 ± 0.05, HYC 0.53 ± 0.06, DEX 0.70 ± 0.05, p<0.001) and decreased content of adrenal corticosterone (C 0.24 ± 0.03, HYC 0.13 ± 0.01, p<0.001 DEX 0.15 ± 0.02, p<0.01) were those of adrenocortical inhibition.Conclusion. There exists an inverse relationship between the pineal and adrenocortical functions in post pubertal male mice (Mus musculus).

Summer and winter changes in the pancreatic endocrine cells, hormones and carbohydrate metabolism of the soft-shelled turtleLissemys punctata punctataBonnoterre (Reptilia, Chelonia)

“…All these manifestations indicate low activity of the B-cells in summer, whereas, in winter, the B-cell population is high with large cell size and nuclear size which are reflected in the C/N ratio, because C/N ratio is lower in winter than summer. Nuclear hypertrophy is known to be related to hyperactivity of the cell as reported in rat pinealocytes (Bandyopadhyay & Chakraborty 2010) and adrenocortical cells of turtles (Ray & Maiti 2001). Epithelial cell height (cell size) of thyroid follicles is also considered as an index of cell activity in turtles (Sarkar et al 2007).…”

Hemicastration induced stimulation of pineal and adrenocortical karyomorphology and cell proliferation can be reversed by steroid hormone and antihormone modulations in mice (Mus musculus)

“…It is interesting to note that the cytophysiological changes indicated by karyomorphological alterations in the pineal gland (Quay, 1976;Chakraborty et al, 1981;Diehl et al, 1984;Sahu and Chakraborty, 1986;Hira et al, 1989;Sinha et al, 2009;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010) and adrenal cortex (Miller, 1954;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010) in mammals provide valuable indices of the nature of activities of these glands. Current experimental results show that hemicastration in postpubertal male mice causes pineal and adrenocortical stimulation at cytological level as indicated by increased karyometric values compared to control group of mice.…”

“…The number of colchicine arrested metaphase cells or the mitotic figures have been considered as an index for cell proliferative activity (Quay and Levine, 1957;Maiti and Chakraborty, 1980;Chakraborty and Maiti, 1981;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010). In the present work, the number of mitotic figures found in the pineal and adrenal cortex was recorded from each section under oil immersion (15 ocular x 100 objectives).…”

“…On the day of autopsy, i.e., on the eleventh day the animals were injected with colchicine (0.1 mg/ 100 gm body weight) to obtain metaphase arrested mitotic cells. The animals were killed by an overdose of ether six hours after colchicine treatment (Quay and Levine, 1957;Maiti and Chakraborty, 1980;Chakraborty and Maiti, 1981;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010) approximately twenty four hours after the administration of last dose of the drug. Both the pineal and adrenal glands were excised out, fixed in Bouin's fixative and routine processes required for histological study were performed.…”

“…In all cases pineal (Quay, 1976;Chakraborty, 1981;1993, 1994Chakraborty and Maiti, 1981;Chakraborty et al, 1981Chakraborty et al, , 1994Maiti and Chakraborty, 1982;Diehl et al, 1984;Sahu and Chakraborty, 1986;Chaudhuri and Maiti, 1989;Hira et al, 1989;Bandyopadhyay et al, 2000;Sinha et al, 2009;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010) and adrenal (Miller, 1954;Maitra and Chakraborty, 1983;Chakraborty, 1994;Bandyopadhyay and Chakraborty, 2010) cytological studies were made from midsagittal paraffin section of 5 µm thickness stained following haematoxylin-eosin and observed under oil immersion (15 ocular x 100 objective). The pineal gland section and only the right adrenal gland sections were used for histological studies.…”