Effect of Colchicine on pre-Implantation Blastocysts and Io-Day-Old Embryos of the Golden Hamster

Abstract

Orsini and Panski (1952) used colchicine in their investigations on the pro-liferative growth of hamster tissue. They found that injected doses of colchicine varying from O· 1 up to 2 mg per 100 g body weight did not cause any significant v4riation from the normal number of mitoses, and the presence of anaphase and telo-phase stages with normal spindles in normal ratio suggested that these doses were ineffective. They stated that effective doses in other rodents (mice, rats, guinea-pigs, and rabbits) are usually below the lethal level. In an attempt to establish the effective dose, they injected colchicine intraperitoneally at concentrations ranging from 0·13 to 7 mg per 100 g body weight into a series of hamsters, rats, mice, and a rabbit. At these levels colchicine was lethal for the latter three series of animals, but was not lethal for hamsters, even up to a concentration of 10 mg per 100 g body weight. They concluded that the hamster possesses a natural resistance to this compound.