Discussion 15 



in spontaneous occurrence of female prostatic primordia, including 

 unilateral lobes, on the basis of levels of foetal ovarian androgenic 

 hormone. 



Jost: Did you find any effect of gonadotrophs substance on such 

 cultures or was there any indication of a reduced activity of the testes in 

 cultures without gonadotrophic substance? Did you study the interstitial 

 cells? 



Price: We did not add gonadotrophic hormone to the clot. We have 

 no idea whether the testes continued to secrete their hormone during 

 culture or whether we were just getting liberation and diffusion of a 

 substance already present in the testes at the time of explanation. The 

 interstitial cell situation is still being studied. 



Corner: As I see it, the action of the foetal hormone in these cultures 

 was accurately imitated by testosterone, and this suggests, as far as it 

 goes, that the foetal hormone is similar chemically or identical with 

 that of the mature testis. 



Price: No, I do not believe that they are necessarily similar or identical. 



Zuckerman: In your reply to Prof. Jost, you suggested that you might 

 be dealing with a "prostatic strain" of female rats. Do most of the 

 females show prostatic rudiments? 



Price: Some years ago we established a stock of rats with an incidence 

 of approximately 80 per cent of female prostate glands. We are no 

 longer selecting and inbreeding and the incidence has fallen. There is 

 quite a difference between the development of prostatic buds from the 

 sinus in those females which develop the character and those which do 

 not. However, in the latter a few prostatic buds usually appear, remain 

 rudimentary and disappear postnatally, and this is true also in females 

 of the non-prostate strain as reported by Mahoney. It seems possible 

 that the sinus of rats may be capable of producing a certain number of 

 buds even without androgenic stimulation. Our culture experiments 

 have not answered this question. 



Zuckerman: Could one infer that the presence of prostatic tubules in 

 the females of other species of mammal, for example, the green monkey, 

 C. aethiops sabaeus, in which, as far as I recall, they are almost a con- 

 stant feature, means that these creatures conform more to the explana- 

 tion you have given for your "prostatic strain" than to Prof. Jost's 

 explanation of the development of prostatic primordia? 



Price: I think that varying levels of androgenic hormone may not 

 necessarily be the whole story in the development of prostatic primordia 

 in females. 



Jost: Dr. Witschi's (1948) explanation is that, in the prostatic strain 

 of rats, the ovary may produce an androgenic compound. It would be 

 necessary to castrate female foetuses or to cultivate the sinus in very 

 young animals to elucidate the question. Do you believe that the ovary 

 or the adrenal gland may produce some androgenic compound ? 



Price: Yes. It is certainly true in postnatal rats, and prostate glands 

 of males and females respond to such hormones. 



Jost: In some cases, for instance in the mole, the ovary contains a very 

 large medullary part which is like a testis, and in such an animal it seems 



