Mammary-Cancer-Inducing and Inhibitory Inherited Hormonal Patterns in Mice2

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Abstract
By mating females of the cancerous A stock, which have a low incidence of mammary cancer as virgins, with males of the CBA, C (BALB/c), and lS strains, it was then determined that these 3 strains transmitted the mammary-cancer-inducing inherited hormonal pattern. This hormonal mechanism will produce a high incidence of mammary cancer in susceptible females that are maintained as virgins when they possess the mammary-tumor agent (MTA). Mice of the JK and lS strains were found to be resistant to the development of mammary cancer. This conclusion was reached after observing females, which acquired the MTA by nursing females of cancerous stocks, and breeding them. Members of the JK stock, although they develop postcastrational adrenocortical hyperplasia, possess an inherited hormonal pattern that presumably either inhibits or delays the development of mammary tumors even in susceptible females with the MTA kept as breeders. Observations of certain crosses could not be explained on any physiological or genetic basis, unless there may be synergistic action between certain of the hormonal patterns acting to influence the genesis of mammary cancer in both breeders and nonbreeders.