Janevski J, Choh V, Stopper H, Schiffmann D, De Boni U
Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Canada.
Neurotoxicology. 1993 Winter;14(4):505-11.
Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a synthetic estrogen with carcinogenic properties. DES is known to alter cytoskeletal components, including the organization of actin stress fibres in C6 rat glioma cells. In a test of the hypothesis that DES disrupts actin filaments of growth cones in neuron-like cells, DES-induced changes in filopodial lengths were quantified in rat pheochromocytoma (PC12) cells in vitro. DES significantly altered growth cone morphology, with collapse of growth cone filopodia and neurite retraction invariably occurring at a concentration of 10 microM. At 5 microM DES, transient reductions in total filopodial lengths occurred. At DES concentrations of 0.1 nM and 1 nM, reductions in total filopodial lengths occurred in a fraction of growth cones. Evidence exists which shows that growth cone activity and morphology are intimately linked to levels of intracellular, free calcium and that DES increases such levels. Measurements of free intracellular calcium levels by fluorescence microscopy, at times concurrent with the DES-induced reduction in total filopodial lengths, showed that calcium levels were indeed significantly increased by 10 microM DES. Labelling of filamentous actin (f-actin) with FITC-phalloidin showed that the f-actin distribution in growth cones exposed to DES could not be differentiated from the distribution found in spontaneously retracting growth cones. Together with evidence which showed that growth cone motility was not affected, the results are taken to indicate that DES, rather than acting directly on the cytoskeleton, exerts its effects indirectly, by a calcium-induced destabilization of actin filaments in the growth cone.
