Results of a case study of glyphosate

ANDRÉS CARRASCO.

Irvine California

Conferencia; Toward a Sustainable 21th Century; 2012

University of California

Teratogenesis by GBH and other pesticides. Relationship with the retinoic acid pathway. In South America, the incorporation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) engineered to be resistant to pesticides changed the agricultural model into one dependent on the massive use of agrochemicals. (1, 2) Different pesticides are used in response to the demands of the global consuming market to control weeds, herbivorous arthropods, and crop diseases. A recent study using a commercial formulation of GBH showed that treatments with a 1/5000 dilution (430 µM of glyphosate) were sufficient to induce reproducible malformations in embryos of the South African clawed frog Xenopus laevis, a widely used vertebrate model for embryological studies (3). The phenotypes observed include shortening of the trunk, cephalic reduction, microphthalmy, cyclopia, reduction of the neural crest territory at neurula stages and craniofacial malformations at tadpole stages. In addition GBH inhibits the anterior expression domain of the morphogen Sonic Hedgehog (shh) and reduces the domain of the cephalic marker otx2, prevents the subdivision of the eye field and impairs craniofacial development.