›› 2017, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (7): 2033-2041.doi: 10.16431/j.cnki.1671-7236.2017.07.019

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of Maternal Exposure to Bisphenol A on Survival Rate, Reproductive Hormones and Relative Genes of Offspring Mice

MA Shuang1, SONG Peng-yan2, ZHAI Fu-zhan2, ZHONG Xiu-hui1,2   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Technology, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding 071001, China;
    2. College of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding 071001, China
  • Received:2017-02-14 Online:2017-07-20 Published:2017-07-22

Abstract:

This study was aimed to investigate the reproductive toxicity of bisphenol A (BPA) exposed to the mother on the offsprings mice. Forty pregnant Kunming mice were randomly divided into 4 groups, i.e. groups A, B, C and D with 10 mice in each group. Group A was the control group and the mice received conventional feeds, mice in groups B, C and D were given 50,500 and 2 500 mg/kg BW BPA in feedstuffs during the whole gestation period (from 1 d to parturition), respectively. The death rates of the offsprings were calculated every week. The offspring mice were sacrificed at 56 days of age (at puberty). The morphology of ovary and testicular tissues were observed with hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. The levels of estradiol (E2), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), testosterone (T) in mice serum were detected with ELISA Kit. The protein levels of Bax and Bcl-2 in ovary or testicular tissues were detected with immunohistochemistry, and the StAR,CYP11a mRNA levels in testicular tissues, the AMH, Kitlg mRNA levels in ovary were measured using Real-time PCR. The results showed that exposure of BPA to the mother extremely significantly increased the mortality (P<0.01),and significantly reduced the testicular weight of offspring mice (P<0.05). Maternal exposure to BPA extremely significantly reduced the levels of T (♂) and FSH(♀) (P<0.01),and extremely significantly elevated E2 (♀) level in offspring mice (P<0.01). BPA exposure damaged the testicular with less leydig cells and ovarian tissues with more vacuoles and less corpus granules in offspring mice. Immunohistochemistry results revealed that maternal exposure to BPA increased the Bax protein level and decreased the Bcl-2 protein level of testicular and ovary tissues in offspring mice. BPA significantly reduced the StAR mRNA expression in male offsprings (P<0.05). However, the mRNA level of CYP11a in groups B and D extremely significantly decreased while group C showed an significant elevation in male offsprings (P<0.01). The expression levels of Kitlg mRNA in groups C and D were decreased extremely significantly in female offsprings (P<0.01), the AMH mRNA expression in groups C and D increased significantly (P<0.05). The conclusion indicated that pregnant mice exposed to different doses of BPA had harmful effects on survival rate in offspring mice, and impact the reproductive hormones, proteins and genes expression.

Key words: BPA; mice; reproductive hormone; immunohistochemistry; reproductive genes

CLC Number: