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Rat prostate glands are induced de novo by androgens in 16·5-day-old male and female urogenital sinuses in vitro as epithelial buds projecting into the surrounding mesenchyme. The role of the mesenchyme in this process has been investigated in various epithelial-mesenchymal recombinations in organ culture.

Isolated epithelium did not form buds but required the presence of the mesenchyme to do so. This requirement seemed to be specific; in the presence of testosterone or dihydrotestosterone only urogenital mesenchyme increased cell division in the urogenital epithelium and stimulated prostatic bud formation. In contrast, heterotypic mesenchyme did not affect epithelial mitosis and failed to induce buds while heterotypic epithelia did not respond to urogenital mesenchyme.

In recombinants of urogenital mesenchyme pretreated with androgen and untreated urogenital epithelium, grown in androgen-free medium, the majority of explants developed prostatic buds while only a few buds were formed from epithelium pretreated with androgen when it was recombined with untreated mesenchyme.

The role of the mesenchyme in the loss of androgen responsiveness of the older female sinuses was examined in heterochronic recombinants. It was found that the old female mesenchyme failed to induce buds in young epithelium while young male or female mesenchymes induced them in the old female epithelium.

The results suggest that the urogenital mesenchyme is essential for the initiation of the foetal rat prostate gland and that it may be a target for androgens and complement or mediate their effect on the epithelium.

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