Abstract
Summary
1. Sixty mature female rats were injected with 10 μg estradiol daily for 10 days to develop their mammary glands. On days 1, 5 or 7, all except 10 control rats were each implanted underneath the kidney capsule with a pituitary from a similar untreated donor rat; on day 11, 26 implanted rats were hypophysectomized. All rats were killed on day 16.
2. Control mammary glands regressed to a bare duct system and showed no secretion, whereas 23 of 24 intact rats with pituitary grafts and 12 of 26 hypophysectomized rats with grafts showed mammary secretion and/or lobule-alveolar development. Most rats with pituitary implants had ovaries with large corpora lutea and few or no follicles. These results demonstrate that grafted pituitaries in the rat secrete greater than normal amounts of prolactin.
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