Neonatal exposure to genistein adversely impacts the ontogeny of hypothalamic kisspeptin signaling pathways and ovarian development in the peripubertal female rat.

ABSTRACT: Neonatal exposure to estrogenic endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) can advance pubertal onset and induce premature anestrous in female rats. It was recently discovered that hypothalamic kisspeptin (KISS) signaling pathways are sexually dimorphic and regulate both the timing of pubertal onset and estrous cyclicity. Thus we hypothesized that disrupted sex specific ontogeny of KISS signaling pathways might be a mechanism underlying these EDC effects. We first established the sex specific development of KISS gene expression, cell number and neural fiber density across peripuberty in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV) and arcuate nucleus (ARC), hypothesizing that the sexually dimorphic aspects of KISS signaling would be most vulnerable to EDCs. We next exposed female rats to th

SUBMITTER: Losa SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3034101 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature