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Context Sulfasalazine (SAS) is a drug prescribed for pregnant and breastfeeding women with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases. SAS treatment induces transitory infertility in both adult men and male rats. Although SAS crosses the placenta and passes into maternal milk, the consequences of maternal SAS exposure on the reproductive development of male offspring needs further study. Aims The current study evaluated whether maternal SAS exposure interferes with the reproductive development of male rat offspring in the neonatal, infant, pubertal and adulthood periods. Methods Pregnant Wistar rats (n = 10/group) received 300 mg/kg/day of SAS dissolved in carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC), by gavage, from gestational day 0 to lactation day 21, and 3 mg/kg/day of folic acid during gestation. The control group received CMC. Key results During puberty, maternal SAS exposure increased the total length of seminiferous tubules, and round cells were observed in the lumen of caput and cauda epididymis. Moreover, SAS induced oxidative stress-related alterations in the testes of infant and adolescent rats. Conclusions Although maternal SAS treatment caused reproductive alterations in infant and adolescent male rats, in adulthood, there were no impairments in sperm parameters that could compromise fertility. Implications This study investigated the consequences of maternal exposure to SAS on the reproductive development of male rat offspring from birth to adulthood, employing a human-relevant dose. Thus, this study provides information for better understanding of SAS treatment during critical periods of development.

Medical gas plasmas are of emerging interest in pre-clinical oncological research. Similar to an array of first-line chemotherapeutics and physics-based therapies already approved for clinical application, plasmas target the tumor redox state by generating a variety of highly reactive species eligible for local tumor treatments. Considering internal tumors with limited accessibility, medical gas plasmas help to enrich liquids with stable, low-dose oxidants ideal for intratumoral injection and lavage. Pre-clinical investigation of such liquids in numerous tumor entities and models in vitro and in vivo provided evidence of their clinical relevance, broadening the range of patients that could benefit from medical gas plasma therapy in the future. Likewise, the application of such liquids might be promising for recurrent BRAF(V600E) papillary thyroid carcinomas, resistant to adjuvant administration of radioiodine. From a redox biology point of view, studying redox-based approaches in thyroid carcinomas is particularly interesting, as they evolve in a highly oxidative environment requiring the capability to cope with large amounts of ROS/RNS. Knowledge on their behavior under different redox conditions is scarce. The present study aimed to clarify resistance, proliferative activity, and the oxidative stress response of human papillary thyroid cancer cells K1 after exposure to plasma-oxidized DMEM (oxDMEM). Cellular responses were also evaluated when treated with different dosages of hydrogen peroxide and the RNS donor sodium nitroprusside (SNP). Our findings outline plasma-oxidized liquids as a promising approach targeting BRAF(V600E) papillary thyroid carcinomas and extend current knowledge on the susceptibility of cells to undergo ROS/RNS-induced cell death.