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  • Impact of prenatal arsenic ...
    Souza, Ana Cláudia Ferreira; Machado-Neves, Mariana; Bastos, Daniel Silva Sena; Couto Santos, Felipe; Guimarães Ervilha, Luiz Otávio; Coimbra, John Lennon de Paiva; Araújo, Larissa de Sales; Oliveira, Leandro Licursi de; Guimarães, Simone Eliza Facioni

    Chemico-biological interactions, 01/2021, Volume: 333
    Journal Article

    Arsenic is a pollutant widely found in the environment due to natural and anthropogenic sources. Exposure to arsenic forms in drinking water has been related with male reproductive dysfunctions in humans and experimental animals at adult age. However, the impact of this pollutant on postnatal reproductive development of male offspring exposed in utero to arsenic is still unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of prenatal arsenic exposure on the postnatal development of the testes and epididymides of rats, during prepuberty. For this purpose, pregnant female Wistar rats were provided drinking water containing 0 or 10 mg/L sodium arsenite (AsNaO2) from gestational day 1 (GD 1) until GD 21 and the male offspring was evaluated in different periods of prepuberty. Our results showed that prenatal arsenic exposure affected the initial sexual development of male pups, reducing their body weight and relative anogenital distance at postnatal day 1. At different periods of prepuberty, male pups from arsenic exposed dams showed a reduction of body and reproductive organs weights, testosterone levels and testis morphometric parameters. Moreover, these pups presented changes in the expression of SOD1, SOD2, CAT and GSTK1 genes and in the activity of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione s-transferase in the testes and epididymides during prepuberty. Taken together, our results show that prenatal arsenic exposure provoked reproductive disorders in prepubertal male rats, probably due to reproductive reprograming and oxidative stress induced by this pollutant. •Prenatal arsenic exposure affected rat male reproductive development.•Gestational exposure to arsenic caused reproductive reprogramming in male rats.•Testis and epididymis of prepubertal rats are damaged by prenatal arsenic exposure.•Prenatal arsenic exposure disturbed antioxidant genes and enzymes in male pups.