[Effect of chronic stress on cell division in corneal and tongue epithelia].

Chronic stress was simulated by daily 1.5-hour cooling of rats to 28-30 degrees C for 28 and 35 days. Stress development was marked by the decreased animals' weight, the reduction in the thymus weight, increase in the adrenal weight and lowered adrenaline content in the adrenals. Chronic stress resulted in a high level of pathological mitoses in the cornea. All series of experiments demonstrated DNA synthesis activation detectable by autoradiography. There were three variants of mitotic activity: the first one was characterized by "scissors" between high DNA synthesis and low mitotic activity, the second one by high DNA synthesis attended by mitotic activity normalization, and the third variant was marked by agreement between high DNA synthesis and high mitotic activity. A possible reason for the "scissors" between DNA synthesis and mitotic activity is discussed.