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Zhao M, Xie Y, Xu X, Zhang Z, Shen C, Chen X, Zhu B, Yang L, Zhou B. Reproductive and transgenerational toxicity of bisphenol S exposure in pregnant rats: Insights into hormonal imbalance and steroid biosynthesis pathway disruption. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2024; 927:172379. [PMID: 38614345 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.172379] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/23/2024] [Revised: 03/23/2024] [Accepted: 04/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/15/2024]
Abstract
Bisphenol S (BPS) is an alternative chemical to bisphenol A commonly used in food packaging materials. It raises concerns due to potential adverse effects on human health. However, limited evidence exists regarding reproductive toxicity from BPS exposure, and the mechanism of associated transgenerational toxicity remains unclear. In this study, pregnant SD rats were exposed to two different doses of BPS (0.05 or 20 mg/kg) from GD6 to PND21. The objective was to investigate reproductive and transmissible toxicity induced by BPS, explore endocrine effects, and uncover potential underlying mechanisms in rats. Perinatal exposure to BPS in the F0 generation significantly decreased the rate of body weight, ovarian organ coefficient, and growth and development of the F1 generation. Notably, these changes included abnormal increases in body weight and length, estrous cycle disruption, and embryonic dysplasia in F1. 4D-DIA proteomic and PRM analyses revealed that exposure to 20 mg/kg group significantly altered the expression of proteins, such as Lhcgr and Akr1c3, within the steroid biosynthetic pathway. This led to elevated levels of FSH and LH in the blood. The hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis, responsible for promoting fertility through the cyclic secretion of gonadotropins and steroid hormones, was affected. RT-qPCR and Western blot results demonstrated that the expression of GnRH in the hypothalamus was decreased, the GnRHR in the pituitary gland was decreased, and the expression of FSHβ and LHβ in the pituitary gland was increased. Overall, BPS exposure disrupts the HPO axis, hormone levels, and steroid biosynthesis in the ovaries, affecting offspring development and fertility. This study provides new insights into the potential effects of BPS exposure on the reproductive function of the body and its relevant mechanisms of action.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min Zhao
- School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China; Hubei Shizhen Laboratory, Wuhan 430061, China
| | - Ying Xie
- School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China; Hubei Shizhen Laboratory, Wuhan 430061, China
| | - Xiuqin Xu
- Wuhan Biobank Co., Ltd., Wuhan 430070, China
| | - Zequan Zhang
- School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China; Hubei Shizhen Laboratory, Wuhan 430061, China
| | - Can Shen
- School of Chinese Medicine, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China
| | - Xianglin Chen
- School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China; Hubei Shizhen Laboratory, Wuhan 430061, China; State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
| | - Biran Zhu
- School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, Wuhan 430065, China; Hubei Shizhen Laboratory, Wuhan 430061, China; State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China.
| | - Lihua Yang
- State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
| | - Bingsheng Zhou
- State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
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Zhang J, Yang W, Li Z, Huang F, Zhang K. Multigenerational exposure of cadmium trans-generationally impairs locomotive and chemotactic behaviors in Caenorhabditis elegans. CHEMOSPHERE 2023; 325:138432. [PMID: 36933370 DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.138432] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2023] [Revised: 02/19/2023] [Accepted: 03/15/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
Cadmium is a naturally existing heavy metal and a notorious environmental pollutant. While its toxic outcomes and underlying mechanisms remain largely elusive. To explore the behavioral change caused by multigenerational exposure of cadmium to C. elegans, we challenged the C. elegans with cadmium for six generations and observed its impact on animal behaviors. Wild-type worms were randomly divided into two groups, the control and cadmium exposure groups. Locomotive and chemotactic behaviors were observed across six generations. Head thrashing frequency, chemotaxis index, and fold change index were used to evaluate the neurotoxicity of multigenerational cadmium exposure. Multigenerational cadmium exposure can trans-generationally increase the head thrashing frequency of C. elegans during swimming, and impair the chemotactic behaviors to isoamyl alcohol, diacetyl, and 2-nonanone. Our findings proposed a trans-generationally behavioral impact induced by multigenerational cadmium exposure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Zhang
- Department of Forensic Pathology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, PR China
| | - Wenxing Yang
- Department of Physiology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, PR China
| | - Zhuo Li
- Department of Forensic Pathology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, PR China
| | - Feijun Huang
- Department of Forensic Pathology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, PR China
| | - Kui Zhang
- Department of Forensic Pathology, West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610041, PR China.
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Zhang H, Chen W. Automated recognition and analysis of body bending behavior in C. elegans. BMC Bioinformatics 2023; 24:175. [PMID: 37118676 PMCID: PMC10148436 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-023-05307-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2023] [Accepted: 04/26/2023] [Indexed: 04/30/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Locomotion behaviors of Caenorhabditis elegans play an important role in drug activity screening, anti-aging research, and toxicological assessment. Previous studies have provided important insights into drug activity screening, anti-aging, and toxicological research by manually counting the number of body bends. However, manual counting is often low-throughput and takes a lot of time and manpower. And it is easy to cause artificial bias and error in counting results. RESULTS In this paper, an algorithm is proposed for automatic counting and analysis of the body bending behavior of nematodes. First of all, the numerical coordinate regression method with convolutional neural network is used to obtain the head and tail coordinates. Next, curvature-based feature point extraction algorithm is used to calculate the feature points of the nematode centerline. Then the maximum distance between the peak point and the straight line between the pharynx and the tail is calculated. The number of body bends is counted according to the change in the maximum distance per frame. CONCLUSION Experiments are performed to prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The accuracy of head coordinate prediction is 0.993, and the accuracy of tail coordinate prediction is 0.990. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the results of the automatic count and manual count of the number of body bends is 0.998 and the mean absolute error is 1.931. Different strains of nematodes are selected to analyze differences in body bending behavior, demonstrating a relationship between nematode vitality and lifespan. The code is freely available at https://github.com/hthana/Body-Bend-Count .
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Zhang
- School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Weiyang Chen
- School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, China.
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China.
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Zhang H, Gao S, Chen W. Automated recognition and analysis of head thrashes behavior in C. elegans. BMC Bioinformatics 2022; 23:87. [PMID: 35255825 PMCID: PMC8903547 DOI: 10.1186/s12859-022-04622-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/20/2021] [Accepted: 03/02/2022] [Indexed: 02/04/2023] Open
Abstract
Background Locomotive behaviors are a rapid evaluation indicator reflecting whether the nervous system of worms is damaged, and has been proved to be sensitive to chemical toxicity. In many toxicological studies, C. elegans head thrashes is a key indicator of locomotive behaviors to measure the vitality of worms. In previous studies, the number of head thrashes was manually counted, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Results This paper presents an automatic recognition and counting method for head thrashes behavior of worms from experimental videos. First, the image processing algorithm is designed for worm morphology features calculation, mean gray values of head and tail are used to locate the head of worm accurately. Next, the worm skeleton is extracted and divided into equal parts. The angle formulas are used to calculate the bending angle of the head of worm. Finally, the number of head thrashes is counted according to the bending angle of the head in each frame. The robustness of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by comparing the counting results of the manual counting. It is proved that the proposed algorithm can recognize the occurrence of head thrashes of C. elegans of different strains. In addition, the difference of the head thrashes behavior of different worm strains is analyzed, it is proved that the relationship between worm head thrashes behavior and lifespan. Conclusions A new method is proposed to automatically count the number of head thrashes of worms. This algorithm makes it possible to count the number of head thrashes from the worm videos collected by the automatic tracking system. The proposed algorithm will play an important role in toxicological research and worm vitality research. The code is freely available at https://github.com/hthana/HTC.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hui Zhang
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China
| | - Shan Gao
- Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, Beijing Key Laboratory of Diagnostic and Traceability Technologies for Food Poisoning, Beijing, 100013, China
| | - Weiyang Chen
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250353, China.
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Machnik P, Schuster S. Recording from an Identified Neuron Efficiently Reveals Hazard for Brain Function in Risk Assessment. Molecules 2021; 26:molecules26226935. [PMID: 34834026 PMCID: PMC8622100 DOI: 10.3390/molecules26226935] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2021] [Revised: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 11/15/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Modern societies use a continuously growing number of chemicals. Because these are released into the environment and are taken up by humans, rigorous (but practicable) risk assessment must precede the approval of new substances for commerce. A number of tests is applicable, but it has been very difficult to efficiently assay the effect of chemicals on communication and information processing in vivo in the adult vertebrate brain. Here, we suggest a straightforward way to rapidly and accurately detect effects of chemical exposure on action potential generation, synaptic transmission, central information processing, and even processing in sensory systems in vivo by recording from a single neuron. The approach is possible in an identified neuron in the hindbrain of fish that integrates various sources of information and whose properties are ideal for rapid analysis of the various effects chemicals can have on the nervous system. The analysis uses fish but, as we discuss here, key neuronal functions are conserved and differences can only be due to differences in metabolism or passage into the brain, factors that can easily be determined. Speed and efficiency of the method, therefore, make it suitable to provide information in risk assessment, as we illustrate here with the effects of bisphenols on adult brain function.
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