Adenocarcinoma and carcinoid developing spontaneously in the stomach of mutant strains of Mastomys natalensis.

Neoplastic and nonneoplastic lesions developing spontaneously in antral and fundic mucosae of stomachs of mutant chamois-coloured Z (130 animals) and Y (67 animals) strains of Mastomys aged 18 to 24 months were examined histologically and histochemically. The Z strain developed both antral lesions (hyperplasia 29.2%; dysplasia 23.8%; adenocarcinoma 17.7%) and fundic carcinoid(s) (72.3%). The antral lesions were limited to the lesser curvature near the pyloric ring. Macroscopically, adenocarcinomas resembled human gastric carcinomas of either Borrmann's type I or II. Histochemically, adenocarcinoma cells were characterised by marked reduction of total mucins produced and predominance of mucins with both periodic acid-Schiff and Alcian blue reactivities (neutral and sialated class II mucins). An infiltrating adenocarcinoma was successfully transplanted into nude mice, reaching the 7th generation of transplantations over 4 years, and retained histological features of the primary tumour. The ultrastructural appearance of growing transplanted tumours supported the reduced production of mucins by adenocarcinoma cells with scarcity of mucin granules and intracellular cysts. However, the Y strain never developed antral lesions like the wild strain, developing fundic carcinoid(s) only. Microscopically, these carcinoids contained argyrophilic nonargentaffin granules, and biochemically produced histamine consistently but no 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT, serotonin) like those of the wild strain. Since we found unexpectedly that a line of F2 but not F1 hybrids between wild and Z strains developed the same antral lesions as Z strain, a preliminary experiment was performed to confirm the development of antral lesions in F2 hybrids newly produced by brother-sister mating. Among 41 surviving F2 offspring, 4 (9.8%) developed hyperplasia, 2 (4.9%) dysplasia and none adenocarcinoma. The numbers (6) of animals observed with these lesions approximated to their expected numbers (7.3).