Effects of catecholamine and serotonin in central nervous system in newborn mice with special reference to neural crest cells; presumptive evidence of neural crest origin.

Catecholamine and serotonin injected i.p. to new-born mice caused gliomas, ependymomas and choroid plexus papilloma together with multiple APUDomas within 48 hours after injection. We consider that an error in neural crest DNA may be caused through an adenylate-cyclic AMP system and Ca++ during replication and/or transcription. Multiple brain tumors caused by catecholamine and serotonin give the presumptive evidence that stem cells of neuroglia may be of neural crest origin.

[The C cell system and experimental thyroid apudomas in the rat: the combined action of 2-acetylaminofluorene and chlorpromazine in inducing systemic medullary type tumors. An ultrastructural study]. / Le système des cellules C et les apudomes expérimentaux de la thyroïde chez le Rat: actions combinées du 2-acétylaminofluorène et de la chlorpromazine permettant l'obtention systématique de tumeurs de type médullaire. Etude ultrastructurale.

Previous chronic administration of chlorpromazine (CPZ) before the start of the 2-acetylaminofluorene (2-AAF) action and during the cancerogenic process systematically facilitate the growth of apudome-like medullary tumors inside the thyroid gland. Ultrastructural studies of normal C cells, adenomatous C cells and cancerous C cells derivated from the normal cellular type show various specific transformations of few intracytoplasmic organelles. In the Golgi apparatus, the path of main maturation of calcitonin-like granules seems the same in the normal and in the adenomatous cells. On the contrary, the amount of calcitonin-like granules falls in the tumoral extensive tissue even though the golgian activity turns towards a high abnormal proliferation of clathrin vesicles or coated vesicles. This new fact is directly related with numerous extensions and repairs of much damage of the neoplastic cell membranes. Finally, the large medullary tumors (showing many atypic mitosis in glandular neoplastic C cell-type) are deeply penetrated by extensive and irregular vegetative nervous fibers.