1. The epigenetic processes of meiosis in male mice are broadly affected by the widely used herbicide atrazine.
- Author
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Gely-Pernot A, Hao C, Becker E, Stuparevic I, Kervarrec C, Chalmel F, Primig M, Jégou B, and Smagulova F
- Subjects
- Animals, Apoptosis drug effects, Binding Sites, Cell Survival, Chromatin Immunoprecipitation, Computational Biology methods, DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded drug effects, GTP Phosphohydrolases metabolism, Gene Expression Profiling, Genome-Wide Association Study, Gonadal Steroid Hormones metabolism, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Histones metabolism, Male, Mice, Mitochondria drug effects, Mitochondria genetics, Mitochondria metabolism, Nucleotide Motifs, Position-Specific Scoring Matrices, Protein Binding, Receptors, Cytoplasmic and Nuclear metabolism, Sperm Count, Testis drug effects, Testis metabolism, Testosterone blood, Atrazine pharmacology, Epigenesis, Genetic drug effects, Herbicides pharmacology, Meiosis drug effects, Meiosis genetics
- Abstract
Background: Environmental factors such as pesticides can cause phenotypic changes in various organisms, including mammals. We studied the effects of the widely used herbicide atrazine (ATZ) on meiosis, a key step of gametogenesis, in male mice., Methods: Gene expression pattern was analysed by Gene-Chip array. Genome-wide mapping of H3K4me3 marks distribution was done by ChIP-sequencing of testis tissue using Illumina technologies. RT-qPCR was used to validate differentially expressed genes or differential peaks., Results: We demonstrate that exposure to ATZ reduces testosterone levels and the number of spermatozoa in the epididymis and delays meiosis. Using Gene-Chip and ChIP-Seq analysis of H3K4me3 marks, we found that a broad range of cellular functions, including GTPase activity, mitochondrial function and steroid-hormone metabolism, are affected by ATZ. Furthermore, treated mice display enriched histone H3K4me3 marks in regions of strong recombination (double-strand break sites), within very large genes and reduced marks in the pseudoautosomal region of X chromosome., Conclusions: Our data demonstrate that atrazine exposure interferes with normal meiosis, which affects spermatozoa production.
- Published
- 2015
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