As a preliminary study of the conditions which affect the hour to hour variations in epidermal mitotic activity in the adult male mouse, experiments were carried out involving artificially induced sleep and exercise. In the first experiment the animals were injected with a dose of barbiturates sufficient to induce sleep for a period of 3 or 4 hr. at a time of day when they were usually active. The injections were given at 17.00 hr. as the animals were waking from their afternoon sleep, and they resulted in a sharp rise in mitotic activity. A maximum was reached at 20.00 hr., the time when the mitotic activity of the controls had dropped to a minimum. As the animals recovered and became active, their mitosis rate fell quickly to a low level. In the second experiment the animals were placed in a slowly revolving box, and so forced to remain awake and active throughout an afternoon when they would otherwise have been asleep. This treatment resulted in extremely low mitotic activity, in contrast to which that of the normally sleeping controls rose to a high level. It is probably significant that when the mice were released from the revolving box, and could at last sleep, their mitosis rate remained low. This suggests that the excessive exercise had either resulted in the production of some mitosis-depressing substance which remained in the system, or that some substance vital to mitosis had been used up and took some time to be replaced. The conclusion is now justified that the rate of epidermal mitosis normally increases during sleep, and decreases during hours of wakefulness and exercise. In this way the form of the diurnal mitosis cycle is determined by the habits of the animals.
ChIP-Seq analysis of the adult male mouse brain after developmental exposure to arsenic
