ENDOCRINE DISRUPTING COMPOUNDS AND FERTILITY: POSTNATAL EXPOSURE ALTERS UTERINE DEVELOPMENT AND FEMALE FERTILITY IN THE RAT

VARAYOUD, JORGELINA

Jornada; XVI Jornadas de la Sociedad Argentina de Biología; 2014

Postnatal development is a critical period and the endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) can be associated with reproductive pathologies, such as infertility. Our research efforts are focusing on EDCs effects on uterine development and their consequences later in life. Using a rat model of postnatal exposure we observed that low doses of EDCs disrupt the uterine development. Then, we studied long-term effects on: 1) reproductive performance, 2) implantation and post-implantation processes, 3) epigenetic marks of endocrine-dependent genes. We detected a decrease of implantation and an increase of resorption sites. To evaluate molecular effects, we observed a mis-regulation of implantation and decidualization-associated genes and an impaired endometrial proliferation. In addition, changes of estrogen receptor alpha DNA methylation were detected in adult rats. The EDCs exposure might contribute to the impaired fertility noted over the past decades.