Morte cellulare indotta dai policlorobifenili su blastocisti di ovino

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are industria1 chemicals, present in the globalecosystem, that can have adverse effects on reproductive capacity acting as disrupting-endocrinecompounds. Thanks to their lipophilic nature, PCBs can accumulate in the anima1 and humanbody, not only in the adipose tissue but also in fluids and tissues of female genital tract. So,PCBs can be an important factor of risk for female reproductive capacity and for embryonic andfetal development. In this study, we want to see if even a short exposure to a PCBs can inducecellular death on sheep embryos at the blastocyst stage using Aroclor 1254, a mixture of PCBswhose composition is representative of environmental contamination. To this aim we treatedembryos for 48h with A-1254. Also, we used different concentrations of A-1254 that can beindicative of PCBs toxicological effects because they are those found in follicular fluid andplasma of women in reproductive age. Morphological analysis show that there is an increase ofnecrosis and of vacuolation after treatrnent with A-1254. Also, TUNEL assay shows that thereis an increased apoptotic index afier treatment. In both case, our data seem to be dosedependent.So, our results show that even a short exposure to PCBs can induce cellular death onpre-implantation embryos at the blastocyst stage. This study is a starting point to understand theeffects of PCBs on sheep blastocysts. Further studies will be necessary to well understandeffects induced by these pollulants.[...]