Variations in Histologic Pattern and Functional Effects of a Transplantable Adrenal Cortical Carcinoma in Intact, Hypophysectomized, and Newborn Rats

Abstract

A transplantable adrenal cortical carcinoma of the rat is described. During 7 generations of transplantation into intact, mature, male and female Osborne-Mendel rats, this tumor line, designated Adrenal cortical carcinoma 494, maintained a consistently similar histologic pattern of cords of uniform, polygonal cells. All tumor-bearing rats developed polyuria, polydipsia, and degenerative changes in the distal convoluted tubules of the kidney. They also showed atrophy of the adrenal glands, sex organs, lymphatic tissue, and pituitary gland. A subline, tumor 494H, developed after transplantation of tumor 494 into hypophysectomized rats. It differed in histologic pattern from tumor 494 in that it contained large, bizarre cells in addition to the uniform, polygonal cells of tumor 494. When tumor 494H was returned to intact, adult, male and female rats, it retained its own distinctive histologic pattern, yet it also induced polyuria, polydipsia, and renal tubular degeneration. Rats of both sexes inoculated with tumor 494H developed hyperplastic mammary glands filled with milky secretion. In the females, the uterine horns were enlarged and the vaginal epithelium mucified; in the males, the testes and accessory sex organs were extremely atrophied. A second subline, tumor 494NB, similar in histologic pattern to tumor 494H, developed when tumor 494 was transplanted to newborn rats. This subline was like subline 494H in biologic behavior, and it produced a similar effect on the organs of tumor-bearing male and female rats.