Sex and strain differences in mouse kidney: Bowman's capsule morphology and susceptibility to chloroform.

Chloroform (CHCl3) produces liver damage in male and female mice but renal injury only in male mice. Previous reports demonstrated that the parietal epithelium of Bowman's capsule in female mice is composed of squamous cells, whereas the parietal cells of Bowman's capsule from male mice consist of a mixture of squamous and cuboidal cells or purely cuboidal cells. These data suggested that the factor(s) associated with these histological differences may similarly be associated with factors that determine susceptibility to tubular damage from chloroform. The susceptibility of male mice to chloroform nephrotoxicity varies with animal strain. In the present study, administration of CHCl3 to male C57BL/6J (C57) and male and female DBA/2J (DBA) mice produced dose-dependent kidney tubular damage in male C57 and male DBA mice. However, CHCl3 nephrotoxicity was considerably greater in male DBA mice than in male C57 mice. Female DBA mice failed to develop renal damage following administration of CHCl3. Male DBA mice had a higher percentage of cuboidal parietal epithelial cells in Bowman's capsule whereas male C57 mice had a higher percentage of squamous cells in the parietal epithelium. The parietal epithelium in Bowman's capsule of female DBA mice was predominantly squamous. Since morphological differences between sex and strain of mice occurred in the capsular epithelium, and the differences in susceptibility to CHCl3 appear to be a tubular phenomenon, it is unlikely that there is a causal relationship between the structure of Bowman's capsule and chloroform-induced renal tubular necrosis; rather, these two independent phenomena are regulated by some common factor(s), possibly testosterone.