THE UV FILTER BENZOPHENONE 3 PROVOKES LOSS OF OOCYTES IN RAT OVARY CULTURES

CLARISA G. SANTAMARÍA ; JULIÁN E. ABUD; MELISA PORPORATO; NICOLE MEYER; ANA C. ZENCLUSSEN; LAURA KASS; HORACIO A. RODRÍGUEZ

Mar del Plata

Congreso; Reunión Conjunta de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación Clínica (SAIC), la Sociedad Argentina de Inmunología (SAI) y la Sociedad Argentina de Fisiología (SAFIS); 2018

SAIC-SAI-SAFIS

Benzophenone 3 (BP3) is frequently used as an organic UV filterin sunscreens, as photoinitiator, indirect food additive, or fragranceenhancer. Given the increased use of sunscreens in the generalpopulation because of the growing concern about UV radiation andskin cancer, as well as the high prevalence of BP3 in water supplies,humans are highly exposed to BP3 by both dermal and oral routes.Several in vitro and in vivo studies have evidenced the ability of BP3to act like an endocrine disrupting chemical. Our goal was to studythe effect of BP3 in the follicular assembly and the potential involvementof Foxl2 pathway using whole ovary cultures. Ovaries werecollected from Wistar rats at birth, treated in vitro with vehicle (0.01% DMSO), BP3 (5.8 nM and 876 nM) or ESR2 inhibitor (0.1 nM),and cultured for 7 days. Nest breakdown, follicular assembly andthe expression of several regulators of these processes (p27, Foxl2,Sox9, Bmp2, Cyp19 and Fst) were evaluated. In vitro exposure toBP3 (5.8 nM) decreased the population of total oocytes, the numberof nests per ovary and early primary follicles population. In addition,BP3 (5.8 nM) induced overexpression of Foxl2 mRNA levels throughERS2 but increased Fst mRNA levels independently from ERS2 orFoxl2. We also observed that the number of p27-positive oocyteswas decreased after BP3. Taken together, our results show that exposureto BP3 (5.8 nM) perturb nest breakdown, causes a decreaseof total oocytes reserve, and induces an overexpression of Foxl2mRNA through ESR2. In conclusion, exposure to an environmentallyrelevant dose of BP3 is enough to perturb the early events of germcell development as showed here in whole ovary cultures.