Elsevier

Acta Histochemica

Volume 118, Issue 5, June 2016, Pages 519-526
Acta Histochemica

Effect of glyphosate on reproductive organs in male rat

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acthis.2016.05.009Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Glyphosate decreased the average daily feed intake at dose of 50 mg/kg rather than 500 mg/kg.

  • Glyphosate decreased the weight of seminal vesicle gland, coagulating gland as well as the total sperm count at a dose of 500 mg/kg.

  • Glyphosate has no impact on the concentration of testosterone, estrdiol and progesterone.

  • Glyphosate can not induce oxidative stress in testes at doses performed in our experiment.

Abstract

Glyphosate as an active ingredient of Roundup® which is thought to be one of the most popular herbicide was used worldwide. Many studies have focused on reproductive toxicity on glyphosate-based herbicide, but few evidence exists to imply the male reproductive toxicity of glyphosate alone in vivo. In this study SD rats were Lavaged with glyphosate at doses of 5, 50, 500 mg/kg to detect the toxicity of glyphosate on rat testis. Glyphosate significantly decreased the average daily feed intake at dose of 50 mg/kg, and the weight of seminal vesicle gland, coagulating gland as well as the total sperm count at dose of 500 mg/kg. Immunohistochemistry of androgen receptor (AR) has no difference among all groups. As to testosterone, estradiol, progesterone and oxidative stress parameters, the level of them has no differences amidst all doses. Taken together, we conclude that glyphosate alone has low toxicity on male rats reproductive system.

Introduction

Nowadays, herbicides play an indispensable role in modern agriculture as those pose positive effects on restraining crop weeds (Pollegioni et al., 2011). Among these chemicals, glyphosate (N-phosphonomethyl-glycine) has been displaying potent efficacy (Dill et al., 2010). Glyphosate was absorbed by stalk and leaf and then transported throughout the whole body, through blocking the enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS), killing approximately 40 divisions such as annual, biennial and perennial grasses, broadleaved, weeds and woody shrubs in orchards (Organization, 1994). Glyphosate as a herbicide chemical has dominant merits compared with others, including its target specificity to plants, complete degradation in 6–7 days, low toxicity to non-plant life forms like human and animals, birds and aquatilia (Pollegioni et al., 2011).

During past decades, environmental pollution caused by heavy use of herbicides is a remarkable problem (Sinhorin et al., 2014). Herbicides accumulate in animals through water and soil, and affect our health by means of eating animals, the pesticides doses of which reach certain concentrations (Acquavella et al., 2004). In recent years, more and more attention has been laid on the reproductive toxicity induced by glyphosate and its commercial formulation like Roundup®. Glyphosate disrupted the aromatase enzyme which involved the process of conversion of androgen to estrogen at a low concentration in human placental cells and human embryonic cells (Benachour et al., 2007, Richard et al., 2005). In tumor Leydig MA-10 cells treated with different concentrations of Roundup®, the expression of aromatase and steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (STAR) decreased (Walsh et al., 2000). Roundup® as commercial formulation of glyphosate which used most worldwide inflict an impact of disrupting rats progression of puberty in a dose-dependent manner, reducing the testosterone production and decreasing the epithelium height at puberty period (Romano et al., 2010). Additionally, although Roundup® can’t impose adverse impact on matrix during pregnancy and lactation under the exposure of it in Wistar rats, it induced the daily sperm count in adulthood, increased ratio on abnormal sperms, and decreasing testosterone level in serum during puberty in male rats offspring (Dallegrave et al., 2007). Moreover, an acute exposure to glyphosate-based herbicide altered aromatase levels, abnormal sperm morphology (Cassault-Meyer et al., 2014).

Most previous reports have focused on the toxicity of commercial formulation of the herbicide glyphosate and few study of glyphosate alone on male reproductive system in vivo. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to elucidate whether glyphosate alone has a direct influence on male reproductive system and oxidative stress mechanism underlying the effects of this pesticide on male reproductive tissues.

Section snippets

Reagent

Active ingredient glyphosate (isopropylamine salt of n-phosphonomethylglycine), purity at 90%, was purchased from shanghai Ryon Biological Technology Co. Ltd.

Animals

Thirty two sexually mature 56-day-old Sprague-Dawle (SD) male rats obtained from Nanjing Qinglongshan Experimental Animal Centre were raised in an animal house and maintained in an air-condition room where temperature is about 21 °C, with controlled lighting (12 h/12 h light/dark circle). Balanced mixture pelleted food and water were

Average daily gain and average daily feed intake

Daily exposure to glyphosate dilution caused a significant decrease in average daily feed intake at dose of 50 mg/kg (Fig. 1A). There were no significant differences between experimental groups and control group about average daily gain, but the decrease of that was dose-dependent (Fig. 1B).

Reproductive organ weights and sperm parameters

The analysis of the weights of the seminal vesicle gland and coagulating gland showed significant differences among the groups, and no significant difference was observed in other absolute organ weight (Table

Discussion

The present study firstly illuminated that the potential effect of glyphosate to rat testis. Treatment with glyphosate at 50 mg/kg decreased average daily feed intake significantly, and at 500 mg/kg, the weight of seminal vesicle gland and coagulating gland, the total sperm count decreased substantially. As to testosterone, estradiol and progesterone levels, and oxidative stress(OS) parameters, as well as AR in testis presented no variation at all doses of glyphosate compared to that in control

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20131315), the National Science & Technology Pillar Program during the Twelfth Five-year Plan Period (2012BAD39B02), Graduate research and innovation projects of Jiangsu Province (KYLX15_0554).

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    Both the authors contributed equally to these work.

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