Reproductive Toxicology Flashcards
How many couples suffer from infertility and why?
15% and it can be either the males, females or unexplained causes
Are sperm numbers declining?
Yes
Has the female fertility rate decreased?
Yes
What causes the reduction of fertility?
Social and economic changes,
Lifestyle choices
Genetics
What is reproductive toxicity?
Adverse effects on any aspect of: - male/female reproductive structures function
- the developing offspring
- lactation which interferes with normal offspring development
What are potential targets for reproductive toxicants?
Gametogenesis
Release of games
Zygote formation
Embryonic/fetal development
Parturition
Lactation
How do you identify what a reproductive toxicant is?
- clinical workups of people in infertility clinics
- people undergoing drug treatments e.g chemo
Epidemiological studies on the general populations e.g. workers using chemicals - Animal studies
What is the aim of repro tox studies?
reveal an effect of a substance on mammalian reproduction through looking at reproductive competence, the developing embryo or fetus prior to birth and monitoring the development of any offspring
How would you detect immediate as well as latent effects?
Observations should continue through one complete lifecycle
How is repro tox studied (e.g. experiment)?
In vitro - carried out in a petri dish e.g. grow cells and tissues derived from the living organisms
In vivo - carried out on live animals or human tissue
What are advantages of in vivo studies?
- most accurately depict the real life situation
- picks up on repro tract/HPG axis
- Metabolism of drugs can be considered
- Effective
- Can be used to study transgenerational efffects
What are disadvantages of in vivo studies?
-Time consuming
-Costly
-Compounds can persist in animal long after exposute
-Requires more animal procedures than in vitro
-Prenatal testing requires exposure to the mother (who might not be of interest in the study)
What are advantages of in vitro studies? (theres lots of these)
- cheaper
- rapid/high throughput
- no drug administration to animals
- insight into tissue were in vivo is unethical or impractical
- permits investigation into drugs affect directly the gonads
- Look into specific cell type
- highly controlled
Easy to manipulate culture conditions - Allows for examination of cell-signalling
- Allows examination of a specific follicle type or stage
What are disadvantages of in vitro studies?
- Doesn’t tell the whole story and in vivo studies need to confirm this
- There might be some tissue level barriers limiting or preventing drug exposure
- no metabolism of drugs
- doesn’t recapsulate cellular pathways that occur in vivo
- excludes repro effects that occur through HPC axis
What is usually used to study repro tox?
Animal models (should be mammal e.g. rats)