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Involment of p53, Bax, and Bcl‐2 pathway in microcystins‐induced apoptosis in rat testis
Author(s) -
Li GuangYu,
Xie Ping,
Li HuiYing,
Hao Le,
Xiong Qian,
Qiu Tong
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
environmental toxicology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.813
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1522-7278
pISSN - 1520-4081
DOI - 10.1002/tox.20532
Subject(s) - apoptosis , biology , bcl 2 associated x protein , programmed cell death , microbiology and biotechnology , downregulation and upregulation , andrology , gene , biochemistry , caspase 3 , medicine
It has been reported that microcystins (MCs) could accumulate in the gonads of mammals and MCs exposure exerts obvious toxic effects on male reproductive system of mammals. We have comfirmedthat MCs could accumulate and induce apoptosis in rat testis. The p53, Bax, and Bcl‐2 protein play important roles in mitochondria‐dependent apoptotic pathway, and this study aimed to investigate whether the p53, Bax, and Bcl‐2 pathway is involved in microcystins‐induced apoptosis in rat testis and discussed the possible mechanisms. Our results show that MCs led to persistent increase of transcriptional and protein level of P53 and Bax expression but led to decrease of Bcl‐2 expression, resulting in an increased ratio of Bax to Bcl‐2, which might contribute to apoptotic cell death of rat testis following MCs treatment. The increased ratio of expression of Bax to that of Bcl‐2 induced by MCs suggests their important role in MCs‐induced apoptosis in rat testis tissue. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 26: 111–117, 2011.