Summary
Adult newts,Notophthalmus viridescens, were given single injections of 0.04 I.U. of bovine ACTH or were immersed in 2% NaCl for 2 hours. In both the corticotrophin-treated and the osmotically-stressed newts, increases in neutrophils and decreases in lymphocytes were obvious and significant. Neither condition was observed in the controls (Tables 1 and 2). The changes seen in the peripheral blood of the experimentalNotophthalmns were very much like those reported earlier for animals of the same species which had received injections of the adrenal steroid, hydrocortisone. Using these lines of evidence, it is argued that neutrophilia and lymphopenia in amphibians could result from a stress → anterior pituitary → steroidogenic tissue-system of reactions which has been proved to effect similar changes in the blood of stressed mammals.
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Supported in part by National Science Foundation grant, GY-7661, to Sweet Briar College.
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Bennett, M.F., Johnson, A.O. Osmotic stress, ACTH and the white blood cell picture in newts,Notophthalmus viridescens . J. Comp. Physiol. 82, 333–338 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00696802
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00696802