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Department of Applied Pharmacology, School of Pharmacy, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

(Received 9 August 1976)

Although the proliferation of the pigeon crop-sac induced by prolactin has been used during four decades for quantitative evaluation of the hormone, little is known of the molecular mechanism of this process. The crop-sac comprises layers of mucosa, sub-mucosa, muscle and skin: prolactin is known to stimulate the hyperplastic multiplication of the mucosa itself. This mucosal epithelium is a multilayer (stratified) of flat (squamous) non-cornified tissue in which cuboidal cells of the basal layer can be easily distinguished. This progressive flattening of the cells in the more superficial layers suggests that the reproductive layer is nearer the basal layer. How does prolactin stimulate this proliferation?

Previous studies from this Department have demonstrated the biological activity of ¹²⁵I-labelled prolactin on the pigeon crop mucosa in vivo (Shani, Givant, Sulman, Eshkol & Lunenfeld, 1972) and in