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XY ANEUPLOIDY IN SPERM OF MEN EXPOSED TO DIBROMOCHLOROPROPANE (DBCP) AS SCHOOL CHILDREN
Citation:
Robbins, W. A., S. G. Selevan, J. G. Dahlgren, L. Xun, AND S P. Darney. XY ANEUPLOIDY IN SPERM OF MEN EXPOSED TO DIBROMOCHLOROPROPANE (DBCP) AS SCHOOL CHILDREN. Presented at North American Testis Workshop, April 4-7, 1999.
Description:
DBCP is a potent testicular toxicant that was used as a pesticide in the late 1970s. Adult exposure is associated with testicular atrophy, poor semen quality, infertility, and disturbed sex ratios in offspring. Effects on children have not been studied, although postnatal/pubertal animal exposures lead to profound adult testicular atrophy. Study Design: Eleven volunteers exposed to DBCP during the mid-1970s through ingestion of contaminated well water at their elementary school donated semen. Four healthy, unexposed controls donated semen concurrently. Coded semen smears were treated with dithiothreitol/lithium salt solution, hybridized with fluorescently labeled repetitive sequence DNA probes specific for chromosomes X, Y, and 18, end scored for aneuploidy. Approximately 8000 cells were scored for each man. Aneuploidy per chromosome per 10,000 cells was calculated. Overall grouped sperm aneuploidy frequencies per 10,000 cells were: XX 2.4; YY 3.7; XY 12.5; 18-18 2.2. Findings: Men were ranked ‘High, Low, Contml,’ according to length of time at the DBCP contaminated elementary school. A significant difference in sperm XY aneuploidy between the groups was detected (Kruskal-Wallis p=0.02). Data from this preliminary study is suggestive of an effect of DBCP on human male sexual development and warrants further investigation for the sake of thousands of boys exposed in the 1970s to high DBCP levels in the California Central Valley.