MORPHOGENETIC ACTIONS OF VARIOUS STEROIDS IN THE CASTRATE MALE RAT

¹ From the Department of Anatomy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

The morphogenetic action of a number of steroid compounds has been examined under comparable laboratory conditions in immature and adult castrate male rats. The most outstanding results of these investigations were the following:

Certain steroids stimulate the male accessory sex organs in a relatively selective manner. Thus testosterone stimulates the seminal vesicles, androsterone the prostate, and androstenediol the preputial glands comparatively more than the other accessory sex organs.

Kendall's Compound "E" is endowed with a definite though not very intense prostate-stimulating activity.

The presence of testicular tissue is indispensable for the seminal-vesicle-stimulating action of certain steroids such as progesterone and pregnenolone. Other compounds (e.g., androstenediol) exert some seminal-vesicl-stimulating action even in the castrate but their activity is greatly increased in the presence of testicular tissue.

Contrary to previous claims desoxycorticosterone acetate is not only devoid of any testoid action but actually tends to decrease the size of the accessory sex organs below the normal castrate level. This, it is assumed, is due perhaps to the compensatory adrenal atrophy with its resulting inhibition of endogenous testoid production by the adrenal cortex.

The correlations between the chemical structure and the pharmacological activity of the steroids used in these experiments have been discussed.