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Postnatal Cellular Proliferation in Mouse and Hamster Lung¹

Cancer Research Institute and Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco, California 94122

Tumor production in young adult strain A mouse lungs by urethan is correlated with proliferation of cells in alveolar walls during Days 2 through 10 after administration of urethan (Nature, 199: 1267–1268, 1963), but tumors do not appear until 45 to 60 days later. Lung tumors emerge at 3 to 10 days of age in mice exposed to urethan 1 day before birth; hence a search was made for an early proliferative event induced by urethan in neonatal mice. High proportions of lung cells incorporated tritiated thymidine between 3 and 8 days of age in mice exposed to urethan 24 hr prenatally but also occurred in controls not exposed to urethan. When neonatal proliferation of lung tissue was sought in hamsters in which spontaneous and urethan-induced lung tumors are not described, increased proportions of cells incorporating tritiated thymidine increased specific activity of DNA in lung, and a 3-fold increase in lung weight were found between 2 and 6 days of age in normal suckling hamsters. This proliferative event is interpreted as an anatomic accommodation to the onset of respiration in newborn rodents with widely different genetic traits for lung adenoma formation. Early tumor emergence in strain A mice suggests that maximal physiological proliferation, which could not be increased by urethan, bears the same essential relationship to emergence of lung tumors as does proliferation in urethan-treated, genetically predisposed adult mice.

¹ This study was supported by NCI-USPHS Contract PH 43-64-42 and USPHS Clinical Cancer Training Grant T12 CA-08054-01.

Received 6/ 3/69. Accepted 6/20/69.

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