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PRELIMINARY SCREENING FOR THE POTENTIAL OF DRINKING WATER DISINFECTION BYPRODUCTS TO ALTER MALE REPRODUCTION
Citation:
Klinefelter, G., J. Suarez, N. Roberts, AND A.B. DeAngelo. PRELIMINARY SCREENING FOR THE POTENTIAL OF DRINKING WATER DISINFECTION BYPRODUCTS TO ALTER MALE REPRODUCTION. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-96/050.
Description:
There is increasing epidemiologic interest in the role drinking water disinfection byproducts (DBPS) may play in adverse reproductive outcomes such as inability to conceive, spontaneous abortion, and low birth weight. nfortunately, few studies have attempted to determine whether DBP's alter male reproductive parameters such as testicular and epididymal histology, testicular and epididymal sperm numbers, epididymal sperm morphology and motility in laboratory animals. ichloroacetic acid and dibromoacetic acid are two commonly-incurring DBPs that have previously been shown to alter motion parameters of epididymal sperm. ere, we elected to study two additional DBP'S, bromodichloromethane (BDCM) and chloral hydrate (CH), which occur in drinking water at levels comparable to dichloroacetic acid and dibromoacetic acid. he effects of 22 and 39 mg/kg BDCM (0.33 and 0.62 g/liter drinking water) and 55 and 188 mg/kg CH (0.78 and 2.7 g/liter drinking water) on motility parameters of cauda epididymal sperm from F344 rats were examined during cancer bioassay studies at interim (52 week) necropsies. xposure to BDCM and CH failed to significantly alter body weight or the weights of the kidney, liver, spleen, or thyroid; histopathologic evaluation of these tissues revealed no tumors at 52 weeks of dosing. n contrast, exposure to 39 mg/kg BDCM significantly decreased the mean sight-line, average path, and curvilinear velocities of sperm recovered from the cauda epididymidis. his BDCM exposure shifted the average path velocity distribution to lower median velocities. xposure to 188 mg/kg CH significantly decreased both the percentage of motile and progressively mottle sperm. his CH exposure shifted the straightline velocity distribution to lower median velocities. his is the first reproductive toxicity data from exposure to BDCM and CH. he observed effects on sperm motion occurred in the absence of carcinogenesis. urther testing is required to establish whether these DBPs alter other facets of the male reproduction such as sexual behavior, spermatogenesis, sperm numbers, and fertility.