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Abstract
The problem of environmentally-produced congenital malformations has come increasingly to the foreground as medical attention has turned from those causes of human illness which have yielded to modern methods of diagnosis and treatment. Investigation of environmental teratogenesis has thus far been primarily descriptive; mechanisms by which external factors produce malformations are still largely unknown.
That 6-mercaptopurine has an inhibitory effect on certain malig- nant cells and immune phenomena is well documented. The antimetabolite has also been shown to produce malformations in fetal rats when injected during the proper stage of development. Demonstration of a biochemical site at which 6-mercaptopurine acts in the rat fetus would suggest a mechanism by which environmental teratogenesis occurs. It was for the purpose of demonstrating such a site that the present investigation was undertaken.
