Compensatory renal hypertrophy in the absence of androgen binding.

As a direct test for a role of androgens, compensatory renal hypertrophy was studied in normal male mice, in androgen-insensitive Tfm/Y mice, and in sibling normal female mice. Fifteen days after unilateral nephrectomy, although the kidneys of the normal male mice were larger, relative increases in renal weight were similar in all groups (33-43%). The magnitude of the increase and the contents of protein, RNA, and DNA were the same in the Tfm/Y mice and the female mice. Androgens are not essential to compensatory renal hypertrophy, but they promote larger mice with larger kidneys.