title: Butyl paraben-induced changes in DNA methylation in rat epididymal spermatozoa.
abstract: Parabens have been shown to affect male rodent reproductive parameters, including testosterone levels and sperm production. In this study, we examined the effect of long-term exposure to butyl paraben (BP) on rat epididymal sperm DNA methylation. Adult male rats were exposed to BP (0, 10, 100 and 1000 mg kg(-1) per day) according to OECD TG407 for a repeated 28-day oral toxicity study. Sperm DNA methylation was examined by differential display random amplification of polymorphic DNA (RAPD) following methylation-specific restriction digestion of DNA. Among the 57 RAPD amplicons, six were methylation specific. Of these, five amplicons increased by 1.4- to 3.8-fold in epididymal sperm DNA at testing dose of BP. This indicates that BP can cause DNA hypermethylation in germ cells from the mitotic through post-meiotic stage in adult rat testes. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the epigenetic modification of sperm DNA by parabens.
authors: Department of Life Science, College of Natural Sciences, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea.
authors: C J
authors: CJ
authors: Park
authors: W H
authors: WH
authors: Nah
authors: J E
authors: JE
authors: Lee
authors: Y S
authors: YS
authors: Oh
authors: M C
authors: MC
authors: Gye