A variety of established skin tumorigenesis protocols were tested for efficacy on athymic nu/nu mice (BALB/c background) and compared on euthymic nu/+ counterparts. Chemical carcinogens and UV light were applied to the ears of 10 mice of each sex and genotype for each group. Treatments were: 0.5 mg 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene [(DMBA) CAS: 57-97-6] to each ear; 0.125 mg DMBA to each ear, followed by 0.1 microgram 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate [(TPA) CAS: 16561-29-8] twice weekly for 56 weeks; 0.2 mg N-nitroso-N-methylurea [(NMU) CAS: 684-93-5; 1% in acetone, 20 microliter] to each ear; 0.1 mg NMU to each ear weekly for 30 weeks; 0.2 mg NMU to each ear, followed by TPA twice weekly for 56 weeks; two ip doses of N-nitroso-N-ethylurea [(NEU) CAS: 759-73-9; 25 mg/kg each], followed by TPA twice weekly topically for 56 weeks; and exposure to sunlamps (250- to 400-nm emission) two or three times per week for 20 weeks, for a total dose of 3.7 X 10(5) J/m2. The chemical treatments caused mainly squamous papillomas and carcinomas, sebaceous adenomas and adenocarcinomas, and basal cell tumors, which appeared both on the skin of the ears and elsewhere. UV light caused squamous tumors, basal cell tumors, and sarcomas. Ear skin of the nu/nu mice developed significantly more squamous tumors than those of nu/+ mice after DMBA-TPA, NMU-TPA, NEU-TPA, repeated NMU, or UV light. Similar results were obtained for the skin of the heads and bodies. Even a single dose of NMU caused a few tumors on the nude, but not the euthymic, mice. A single dose of DMBA caused primarily sebaceous adenomas, distributed at random over the entire bodies. These results show that, contrary to previous reports, nude mice are sensitive to skin tumorigenesis, more so than euthymic nu/+ mice similarly exposed to diverse types of carcinogen and treatment protocols.