A reexamination of the effects of high rearing temperature on the nonolfactory turbinates of rats.
The nasoturbinates and maxilloturbinates have previously been reported to be completely resorbed in Wistar rats reared at 32-33 degrees C from 3 weeks to 6 months of age. The phenomenon was reinvestigated for the first time in the experiments reported here, with dramatically different results. Rats reared at 33 degrees C and 53% relative humidity proved to have naso- and maxilloturbinates of almost the same size as rats reared at 21 degrees C. After effects of skull and rostral size on turbinate size had been statistically removed, rearing temperature proved not to be important in explaining differences in turbinate widths or turbinate separation, but temperature and sex had significant interactive effects on turbinate lengths. Reasons why the turbinates were completely lost in the previous study but largely retained in the present study are unclear and probably subtle, given that procedures in the two studies were closely similar. Loss of the nonolfactory turbinates is demonstrably not a consistent response--adaptive or otherwise--to rearing under hot conditions, and probably factors in addition to temperature are critical to turbinate development.
D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008297:Male; D008437:Maxilla / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D051381:Rats; D011919:Rats, Inbred Strains; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000254:growth & development; D014420:Turbinates / Q000254:growth & development