HAIRLESSNESS DOES NOT INFLUENCE GROWTH-RETARDATION IN NUDE-MICE - COMPUTER IMAGE-ANALYSIS STUDY

Ossification in 4-week-old nu/nu and nu/+ BALB/c and BFU mice was stud ied by X-ray analysis and by measurement of the thickness of the proxi mal tibial growth cartilage using CUE 4 Olympus computer image analysi s. Not only altered architecture but also a significantly thinner prox imal tibial growth plate was observed in athymic nu/nu as opposed to n u/+ and BFU mice. On the other hand, no significant differences were f ound between nu/+ and BFU littermates. Higher Xray density of tail ver tebrae was observed in nu/+ and BFU than in nu/nu mice. This compariso n between athymic nu/nu and hairless euthymic BFU mice indicates that altered postnatal ossification in nude mice is not caused by hairlessn ess, but is due to other (immunological or endocrinological) differenc es.