Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) inhibits the gap junction intercellular communication and induces apoptosis in human ovarian granulosa cells.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has attracted widespread research attention as it is very stable, bioaccumulates, and causes reproductive toxicity. Data from several animal experiments and epidemiological studies indicate that female fertility may decline because of ovarian granulosa cell (GC) apoptosis as oocyte quality is positively associated with effective gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) between GCs. To the best of our knowledge, however, no previous trials have been conducted or reported on the effects of PFOA exposure on apoptosis induction in human GCs. Moreover, the roles of GJIC in GC survival and in the induction of apoptosis in GCs by PFOA remain unclear. To test this, we cultured human GCs in vitro and treated them with 0 μM, 0.3 μM, 3 μM, or 30 μM PFOA for 24 h. We also treated a human ovarian GC line (KGN) with various combinations of PFOA, retinoic acid (RA, 10 μM), and carbenoxolone disodium (CBX, 50 mM). Our findings showed that PFOA lowered human GC viability and increased apoptosis. The effects of CBX resemble those of PFOA. The combination of PFOA and CBX enhances the inhibition of GJIC by PFOA and promotes apoptosis. The effects of RA are the opposite to those of PFOA. The combination of RA and PFOA mitigates PFOA-induced GJIC inhibition and reduces apoptosis. The observed expression levels of apoptosis-related proteins were consistent with the aforementioned findings. Hence, our study demonstrated that PFOA may induce human ovarian GC apoptosis by inhibiting GJIC.