Proceedings of the Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility: Executive Summary
2008 Manuscript Abstracts
The DES Example – Prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen and thus EDC, provides an unfortunate example of developmental programming. DES was given to U.S. pregnant women between 1938 and 1971 under the erroneous assumption that it would prevent pregnancy complications.
In fact, in utero exposure to DES alters the normal programming of gene families, such as Hox and Wnt, that play important roles in reproductive tract differentiation.
As a result, female offspring exposed to DES in utero are at increased risk of clear cell adenocarcinoma of the vagina and cervix, structural reproductive tract anomalies, infertility and poor pregnancy outcomes, while male offspring have an increased incidence of genital abnormalities and a possibly increased risk of prostate and testicular cancer. These observed human effects have been confirmed in numerous animal models which have also provided information on the toxic mechanisms of DES. Animal experiments have also predicted changes later found in DES-exposed humans, such as oviductal malformations, increased incidence of uterine fibroids and second-generational effects such as increased menstrual irregularities and possibly ovarian cancer in DES-granddaughters and increased hypospadias in DES-grandsons.
DES is but one example of how exposure to EDCs can disrupt developing organ systems and cause abnormalities, many of which only appear much later in life or in the subsequent generation, such as endometriosis, fibroids and breast, cervical and uterine cancer in women; poor sperm quality and increased incidence of cryptorchidism and hypospadias in men; and subfertility and infertility in men and women.
Epigenetic studies have also shown that DES causes alterations in uterine tissue architecture and morphology and heightens susceptibility to uterine adenocarcinoma by inducing permanent changes in several estrogen-responsive uterine genes. These are but a few examples of how the field of epigenetics has and will continue to contribute to our mechanistic understanding of the impact of environmental contaminants on reproductive health.
Uterus Development and the Environment – Women exposed to DES in utero during critical periods of reproductive tract development developed several types of reproductive tract abnormalities, as well as an increased incidence of cervical-vaginal cancer later in life. Animal studies that simulate the human DES experience have since shown that exposure of the developing reproductive tract of CD-1 mice to DES imparts a permanent estrogen imprint that alters reproductive tract morphology, induces persistent expression of the lactoferrin and c-fos genes and induces a high incidence of uterine adenocarcinoma. Experiments in rats have shown exposure to DES during the critical window of uterine development leaves a hormonal imprint on the developing uterine myometrium in rats that were genetically predisposed to uterine leiomyoma, increasing the risk for adult uterine leiomyoma from 65% to greater than 90% and increasing tumor multiplicity and size. DES-induced developmental programming appears to require the estrogen receptor α, suggesting that signaling through this receptor is crucial for establishing developmental programming.
Sources
- Full study (free access) : Proceedings of the Summit on Environmental Challenges to Reproductive Health and Fertility: Executive Summary, Fertility and Sterility, PMC2440710, 2008 Feb.
- Featured image Dmitry Ratushny.
DES DIETHYLSTILBESTROL RESOURCES
- Source DES epigenetics studies.
- Diethylstilbestrol DES studies by topics.