Ultrastructural Investigation of Spontaneous Pituitary Adenomas in Aging Sprague-Dawley Rats

Abstract

Investigation of the spontaneous pituitary adenomas in rat have been limited mainly to light microscopic study. Furth et al. (1973) described them as chromophobic, secreting prolactin. Kovacs et al. (1977) in an ul trastructural investigation of adenomas of old female Long-Evans rats, found that they were composed of prolactin cells. Berkvens et al. (1980) using immunocytochemistry at the light microscopic level, demonstrated that some spontaneous tumors of old Wistar rats could contain GH, TSH or ACTH as well as PRL.