Steroid hormone and antihormone induced changes in the pineal and adrenocortical karyomorphology and cell proliferation in mice ( Mus musculus )

In the present investigation steroid hormones, estradiol and testosterone and non-steroidal antihormones, tamoxifen and flutamide induced responsiveness in pineal and adrenal karyomorphology and cell proliferation activity was studied in post pubertal male mice (Mus musculus). Estradiol was injected at a dose of 5μg, testosterone 100 μg, tamoxifen 500 μg and flutamide 2 mg per 100 gm body weight administered intramuscularly in all cases for ten consecutive days. Control mice were similarly injected with oil vehicle 0.3 ml of peanut oil intramuscularly for same duration. The results indicated that except testosterone, all other treatments with estradiol, tamoxifen and flutamide caused significant hyperactivity of both the pineal and the adrenal gland associated with significantly increased cell proliferation activity. On the contrary testosterone administration was inhibitory to pineal - adrenal karyometric and mitotic incidence values. It was concluded that in male post pubertal mice both pineal and adrenal shows antagonistic response towards estradiol and testosterone administration. Although tamoxifen showed estrogen agonistic behaviour, flutamide on the reverse induced pineal and adrenal cytophysiological stimulation. Such stimulatory response was antagonistic to the inhibitory response shown by pineal and adrenal karyomorphology and cell proliferation following testosterone administration.