Reproductive System & Sexual Disorders: Current Research
Open Access

Abstract

Toxic Effects of Atrazine on Reproductive and Immune Systems in Animal Models

Jeremy Feng, Albert Liu and Wei Zhu

Background: Each year massive amounts of over 70,000 chemicals are dumped into the sea. For many of the chemicals, the consequences of it coming into contact with marine life. For such reasons, there was a large die off of American lobsters in the Long Island Sound. Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides, and detected pesticide contaminant of ground water in the USA, which is linked to hormonal dysregulation of animal/human reproduction. However, Atrazine’s effects on invertebrate reproduction and other systems are still unknown. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effects of Atrazine on hemocytes, sperm motility and the androgen receptor, which are closely related to reproductive and immune systems. Methods: In this study, we utilized marine mollusk and bovine sperm as animal model because the large die off of lobsters could be due to the use of large amounts of herbicides. Results: Our results demonstrated that increasing level of atrazine significantly reduced sperm motility, and this chemical has the same effect on bull sperm as well. We firstly discovered that human androgen receptor like protein is present in both sperm and testicular tissue in mussels. Incubation of atrazine with mussel’s testicular tissues significantly down regulated androgen receptor expression in target Leydig cells. Furthermore, to investigate its effect on immune tissues and observed that increasing concentration of atrazine increase the death of hemocytes (mussel immune cell) significantly, and it has similar effect on human immune cells. Thus this widely used herbicide has toxic effect on both reproductive and immune system of mollusk. Conclusion: Atrazine significantly reduced mollusk sperm motility and bull sperm motility as well. Human androgen receptor like protein was firstly discovered in both sperm and gonad tissue of blue mussels. Incubation of atrazine with mussel’s testicular tissues significantly down regulated androgen receptor expression in target Leydig cells. Furthermore, increasing concentration of atrazine increased the death of hemocytes (mussel immune cell) significantly, and it has similar effect on human immune cells. Thus this widely used herbicide has toxic effect on both reproductive and immune system of mollusk. However, the mechanism of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) impact on reproduction and immune systems needs to be further investigated.