Perchlorate Exposure Reduces Primordial Germ Cell Number in Female Threespine Stickleback.

ABSTRACT: Perchlorate is a common aquatic contaminant that has long been known to affect thyroid function in vertebrates, including humans. More recently perchlorate has been shown to affect primordial sexual differentiation in the aquatic model fishes zebrafish and threespine stickleback, but the mechanism has been unclear. Stickleback exposed to perchlorate from fertilization have increased androgen levels in the embryo and disrupted reproductive morphologies as adults, suggesting that perchlorate could disrupt the earliest stages of primordial sexual differentiation when primordial germ cells (PGCs) begin to form the gonad. Female stickleback have three to four times the number of PGCs as males during the first weeks of development. We hypothesized that perchlorate exposure affects primordial sex

SUBMITTER: Petersen AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4934864 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature