EXPOSURE OF MINIMUM DOSES OF GLYPHOSATE DURING THE POSTNATAL PERIOD ALTERS THE OVARIAN FUNCTION AND ESTROUS CYCLE

DELFINA FERMAN; MARINA ERCILIA DASSO; CECILIA LUCIA CENTOLA; MARIANA CRUZ; EDUARDO DASCAL; YAMILA GAMALERI ; PATRICIA PENISSI; MARINA PELUFFO

Mar del Plata

Congreso; LXVIII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica; 2023

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica

Glyphosate is one of the most widely used herbicides in agriculture worldwide. It has been demonstrated that at high doses it can act as an endocrine disruptor. Also, in vitro and in vivo studies imply that glyphosate changes ovarian function. However, there are some controversies and most of the studies focus on prenatal period exposure at high doses. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of glyphosate on ovarian function when chronically administrated at low doses during the postnatal period. To accomplish this, female Sprague Dawley rats (n=16, 1 month old) were daily weighted and treated for 7 weeks. Rats were randomly assigned to one of the following treatment groups: control group (n=8, receiving water) and treated group (n=8, receiving an oral dose of glyphosate 1mg/kg day). The length and stages of the estrous cycle were evaluated by daily vaginal cytology. Once vaginal smears were collected and dried on a slide, they were stained with Giemsa and observed under a microscope to determine the different cell types present in each smear to assign their stage of the cycle. On the day of the sacrifice, blood was obtained by intracardiac puncture to further assess serum estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P4) levels, and the ovaries were weighted. No significant differences were observed in the weights of the animals or the ovaries of the different groups. Interestingly, we observed that the exposure to chronic low doses of glyphosate significantly decreased the number of days the rats stayed at the diestrus stage in comparison to the controls (p