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Updated: Apr 3, 2026
Using Caenorhabditis elegans for Studying Trans- and Multi-Generational Effects of Toxicants
Published on: July 29, 2019
Effects of Microcystin-LR Exposure on Spermiogenesis in Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans
Yunhui Li1, Minhui Zhang2, Pan Chen3
1Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China. yhli@seu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Little is known about the effect on spermiogenesis induced by microcystin-leucine arginine (MC-LR), even though such data are very important to better elucidate reproductive health. In the current work, with the aid of nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) as an animal model, we investigated the defects on spermiogenesis induced by MC-LR. Our results showed that MC-LR exposure induced sperm morphology abnormality and caused severe defects of sperm activation, trans-activation, sperm behavior and competition. Additionally, the expression levels of spe-15 were significantly decreased in C. elegans exposed to MC-LR lower than 16.0 μg/L, while the expression levels of spe-10 and fer-1 could be significantly lowered in C. elegans even exposed to 1.0 μg/L of MC-LR. Therefore, the present study reveals that MC-LR can induce adverse effects on spermiogenesis, and those defects of sperm functions may be induced by the decreases of spe-10, spe-15 and fer-1 gene expressions in C. elegans.
