Caenorhabditis elegans Responses to Specific Steroid Hormones

Nobuaki Tominaga; Kazuhiro Ura; Masato Kawakami; Tomoaki Kawaguchi; Shinya Kohra; Yoshinori Mitsui; Taisen Iguchi; Koji Arizono

doi:10.1248/jhs.49.28

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Caenorhabditis elegans Responses to Specific Steroid Hormones

Nobuaki Tominaga, Kazuhiro Ura, Masato Kawakami, Tomoaki Kawaguchi, Shinya Kohra, Yoshinori Mitsui, Taisen Iguchi, Koji Arizono

Author information

Nobuaki Tominaga
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Ariake National College of Technology
Kazuhiro Ura
CREST, JST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation
Masato Kawakami
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Ariake National College of Technology
Tomoaki Kawaguchi
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Ariake National College of Technology
Shinya Kohra
Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Nagasaki University
Yoshinori Mitsui
Faculty of Environmental and Symbiotic Sciences, Kumamoto Prefectural University
Taisen Iguchi
CREST, JST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation
Department of Bio-environmental Research, Center for Interactive Bioscience, National Institute for Basic Biology
Koji Arizono
CREST, JST, Japan Science and Technology Corporation
Faculty of Environmental and Symbiotic Sciences, Kumamoto Prefectural University

Keywords: Caenorhabditis elegans, reproduction, fecundity, endocrine disrupting chemical, steroid hormone

JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2003 Volume 49 Issue 1 Pages 28-33

DOI https://doi.org/10.1248/jhs.49.28

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Abstract

In this paper, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is proposed as a model organism for studying chemical effects over multiple generations. We investigated whether C. elegans responds to vertebrate steroid hormones. We found that estrogenic steroids, especially estradiol (E2), have a cholesterol-like potency in supporting the reproduction of C. elegans. In contrast, testosterone (TS) and diethylstilbestrol (DES) did not display this potency. On the other hand, E2, TS and DES supressed the fecundity rate of C. elegans, when culture carried out with cholesterol. Moreover effect of TS accumulated over generation, in contrast to the other chemicals tested. These data suggested that with convenient biomarkers such as fecundity, C. elegans might be an effective model organism for studying chemical actions, including the disruption of reproduction.

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