Reproductive responses in fathead minnow and Japanese medaka following exposure to a synthetic progestin, Norethindrone

The synthetic progestin megestrol acetate adversely affects zebrafish reproduction

“…In our study, the E2 and T levels in female fish plasma and the 11-KT level in male fish plasma were significantly decreased after MTA exposure for 21 days, further demonstrating that synthetic progestins can adversely affect fish of both sexes. It was reported that exposure to norethindrone (Paulos et al, 2010), gestodene, and levonorgestrel resulted in decreases in the 11-KT, E2, or T concentrations, while desogestrel and drospirenone did not affect sex hormone levels (Runnalls et al, 2013). The degrees of alterations in sex hormones may depend on the potency and concentrations of the progestins to which the fish are exposed.…”

“…Asterisk denotes significant difference from the SC. *P < 0.05. and drospirenone) (Runnalls et al, 2013;Zeilinger et al, 2009;Paulos et al, 2010) during 21 days exposure, which might be due to the partial differences in biological activities (Schindler et al, 2008), as well as the different sensitivity of fish species. Our results indicated that during the short-term exposure (21 days), the concentration to impair fish reproduction is relatively higher than those measured from environmental surface waters.…”

“…Recently, several studies have reported that even at low concentrations, natural progesterone (P4) or synthetic progestins (e.g., levonorgestrel, norethindrone, desogestrel, and gestodene) may cause endocrine disruption and inhibit reproduction in fish (Atteke et al, 2003;Zeilinger et al, 2009;Paulos et al, 2010;Murack et al, 2011;DeQuattro et al, 2012;Runnalls et al, 2013;Svensson et al, 2013Svensson et al, , 2014 and frogs (Kvarnryd et al, 2011;Lorenz et al, 2011;Safholm et al, 2012;Hoffmann and Kloas, 2012). However, their underlying mechanisms are not yet well-known.…”

Progesterone and norgestrel alter transcriptional expression of genes along the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid axis in zebrafish embryos-larvae

“…Recent studies have shown the reproductive toxicity of synthetic progestins on aquatic organisms at the ng L − 1 concentration range (Zeilinger et al, 2009;Paulos et al, 2010;Runnalls et al, 2013;Svensson et al, 2013;Han et al, 2014). Additionally, toxicological studies demonstrated that P4 not only caused a significant decrease in sperm motility of fathead minnow following one-week exposure at a concentration of 300 ng L −1 (Murack et al, 2011), but also reduced fecundity and fertility at 100 ng L −1 after 21 day exposure (DeQuattro et al, 2012).…”

Analysis of 21 progestagens in various matrices by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) with diverse sample pretreatment

“…Previous environmental studies about steroid hormones mostly focused on estrogens [4][5][6][7] and a few studies on other steroids such as progestagens [8][9][10][11]. It is now well established that various natural and synthetic progestagens are widely used in humans and animals daily life for many reasons [12,13], and recent studies have shown the reproductive toxicity of progestagens to aquatic organisms at nanograms per liter levels [14][15][16][17][18][19]. Therefore, the presence of progestogens in the environment should deserve greater attention, and it is essential to develop sensitive and reliable analytical methods for determination of the broad number of progestagens in various environmental matrices in order to assess their environmental risks.…”