THE EFFECT OF TWO CORTIN-LIKE COMPOUNDS UPON THE BODY WEIGHT AND WORK PERFORMANCE OF ADRENALECTOMIZED RATS

Abstract

Desoxycorticosterone is the most active of the known steroid compounds in its life maintaining capacity. The compound 17-oxy-ll-dehydrocorticosterone has little or no life maintenance effect. 17-hydroxy-ll-dehydrocorticosterone has an apparently greater effect upon the work performance of adrenalectomized rats than does desoxycorticosterone when the first 24 hrs. following operation are used as a test period. In addition, adrenalectomized [male] rats having an initial body wt. of 180 g. were treated for 1 wk. with these 2 compounds and at the end of this period their work capacity was studied. The rats treated with desoxycorticosterone gained in wt. even when the doses were small, and although their capacity to work was improved over that of untreated animals, their performance was poor even when as much as 10 mg. was administered daily. All of the animals treated with 17-hydroxy-ll-dehydrocorticosterone lost wt. to the same extent as untreated animals, but their work performance was improved above that of the animals treated with desoxycorticosterone. Similar animals treated with a mixture of desoxycorticosterone and 17-hydroxy-ll-dehydro-corticosterone performed more work than animals treated with an equal quantity of the single substance. The findings are in harmony with the hypothesis that there are qualitative differences in the biologic effects of some of the cortin-like compounds.