Induction of Translocations in Mice by Triethylenemelamine

Abstract

THE findings of Jackson and Bock¹ that triethylenemelamine causes male sterility in rats instigated an investigation into the possibility that this effect is at least partially due to the production of dominant lethals through chromosome breakage. If this were true, one might expect to find that a proportion of the survivors carry translocations. In support of this idea is the work of Fahmy and Fahmy^2,3 on Drosophila, where it was shown that triethylenemelamine induces a high frequency of translocations as well as dominant lethals. A search for translocations in the offspring of treated male mice was therefore started.