Genetic influences on induced cleft palate in different strains of mice

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Abstract
This paper reports some of the genetic aspects of induced cleft palate susceptibility in the Strong a mouse compared with another less susceptible strain (C3H) and with their intercrosses.Pregnant females were injected with 1.25 mg of cortisone (Cortone acetate Merck) daily on the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth day of pregnancy and killed on the seventeenth and eighteenth day of pregnancy. The control animals were not treated.In treated animals, cleft palate was induced in 100% of the Strong a offspring and 36.3% in the C3H offspring. In cross matings between these two strains the same dose of cortisone induced 11.7% of cleft palate if the mother was of the Strong a strain and 43.7% if of the C3H strain. The same dose produced cleft palate in 29.7% of the offspring of the F1 generation when mated among themselves and in 42.5% of the white offspring of the F2 generation when mated among themselves.The incidence of induced cleft palate was independent of albinism in the offspring of the F1 and F2 generation. There was no significant correlation between the occurrence of cleft palate and the position in utero, the weight of the affected fetuses or the litter size; however, the more crowded the uterine horn, the more affected fetuses it contained.There was no significant correlation between weight of the mother and number of affected fetuses among her offspring when the effect of litter size was eliminated.