Karyometric studies on brains of the golden hamster fetuses from mothers kept under low methionine supply.

We investigated the size of cell nuclei in brains of the golden hamster fetuses from mothers kept on protein-methionine-low diet (PMLD) from two months before conception through pregnancy. The frequency of volume class ranges of nervous cell nuclei in the cortex and caudate nucleus of 16 days old fetuses from PMLD mothers significantly differed from that in fetuses from mothers fed with standard diet. The differences in distribution of the frequency of occurrence of cell nuclei volumes indicated an inhibition of the mitotic activity in the PMLD fetuses.