Department of Urology and Andrology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
Institute of Reproductive Medicine, Nantong University School of Medicine, Nantong, China.
Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2021 Dec 24;12:800327. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2021.800327. eCollection 2021.
There is emerging evidence that environmental toxicants, in particular endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) such as cadmium and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), induce Sertoli cell and testis injury, thereby perturbing spermatogenesis in humans, rodents and also widelife. Recent studies have shown that cadmium (e.g., cadmium chloride, CdCl) and PFOS exert their disruptive effects through putative signaling proteins and signaling cascade similar to other pharmaceuticals, such as the non-hormonal male contraceptive drug adjudin. More important, these signaling proteins were also shown to be involved in modulating testis function based on studies in rodents. Collectively, these findings suggest that toxicants are using similar mechanisms that used to support spermatogenesis under physiological conditions to perturb Sertoli and testis function. These observations are physiologically significant, since a manipulation on the expression of these signaling proteins can possibly be used to manage the toxicant-induced male reproductive dysfunction. In this review, we highlight some of these findings and critically evaluate the possibility of using this approach to manage toxicant-induced defects in spermatrogenesis based on recent studies in animal models.
越来越多的证据表明，环境毒物，特别是内分泌干扰化学物质（EDCs），如镉和全氟辛烷磺酸（PFOS），会导致支持细胞和睾丸损伤，从而扰乱人类、啮齿动物和野生动物的精子发生。最近的研究表明，镉（例如氯化镉，CdCl）和 PFOS 通过推测的信号蛋白和信号级联发挥其破坏作用，类似于其他药物，如非激素男性避孕药阿屈津。更重要的是，这些信号蛋白也被证明参与调节睾丸功能，这是基于啮齿动物的研究。总之，这些发现表明，毒物正在使用类似的机制来支持生理条件下的精子发生，从而扰乱支持细胞和睾丸的功能。这些观察结果在生理学上具有重要意义，因为对这些信号蛋白表达的操纵可能用于管理毒物引起的男性生殖功能障碍。在这篇综述中，我们强调了其中的一些发现，并根据动物模型的最新研究，批判性地评估了这种方法管理毒物诱导的精子发生缺陷的可能性。
