Experimental pharmacogenetics : physiopathology of heredity and pharmacologic responses / [Hans Meier].

  • Hans Meier
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Experimental pharmacogenetics : physiopathology of heredity and pharmacologic responses / [Hans Meier]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    20 III. Experimental Pharmacogenetics urements of thyroid activity: C57BL/6 greater than C57BR/cd, greater than BALB/c, greater than A/J, and males greater than females (Amin et al., 1957) . Strain differences are apparent also regarding distribution and contents of certain (hydrolytic) enzymes (Meier et al., 19б2) ; great variation has been noted also for many behavioral (aggressive¬ ness, sluggishness, etc.) patterns (Mordkoff and Fuller, 1959) ; distri¬ bution and nature of histocompatibility genes have been mentioned previously. An important genetic component in the determination of serum cholesterol level in mice has been reported for five different inbred strains (Bruell et al., 1962) ; cholesterol levels (under identical lab¬ oratory conditions) ranged from 128mg/100ml in C57BL/6 to 208 mg/100 ml in C3H mice. [Gene differences in cholesterol level have been previously reported and particularly between obese {^obob, I6O- 200 mg/100 ml) versus non-obese (70-140 mg/100 ml) controls (see below)]. One of the most striking findings was that the cholesterol level is significantly higher in all males than females. Sexual dimorphisms relate to various morphologic characters (sub¬ maxillary glands, kidneys, adrenals) and also physiologic parameters, e.g., in the concentration of (greater in males) by the submaxillary glands (Lacassagne, 1940; Llach et al., I960) and in the lipid content of adrenal glands (females have considerably larger adrenals and greater amounts of lipid, cholesterol, and phospholipid) in STR/N (Silverstein and Yamamoto, 1961). In recent studies on the sexual dimorphism in lipid contents of the adrenal glands of CBA mice the following observations were made (M. S. Fisher, 1962, personal com¬ munication) : (1) the lipid concentration is lower in males than females, (2) castration abolishes the difference, the lipid content in¬ creases in the gonadectomized male and decreases in the gonadec- tomized female, (3) androgens depress the level in both intact and castrate males, (4) estrogens raise the contents of both castrate and intact mice, (5) castration of males results in increase of adrenal weights and decrease in weight of the submaxillary gland, and (6) ovariectomy decreases the adrenal weight and increases the weight of the submaxillary gland. Histidine decarboxylase activity in the kidney of female mice is about twice that in males; most striking, in pregnancy the kidney enzyme level is elevated to about fifty times the