Caenorhabditis elegans as a useful model to assess the effect of spermiogenesis induced by three teratogens

Abstract

Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), with homologous genes and conservative spermiogenesis in mammals, has a series of advantages to illuminate and study many biological processes including reproductive toxicity. So it is a very useful model to assess environmental and ecological toxicity. Here we introduce C. elegans as an animal model and three known mammalian sperm teratogens methyl methanesulfonate, mitomycin C and cyclophosphamide as experimental materials to elucidate the efficient and reliability for the assessment of chemicals altering spermiogenesis. The results showed that, with the aid of the brood size, spermatids activation, trans-activation, sperm competition as the endpoints, the adverse effects of three teratogens on C. elegans were detected. Thus, while the data of chemicals induced spermiogenesis abnormality is incomplete, we speculated that C. elegans could be a useful animal model to explore the effects on spermiogenesis of chemicals. And we propose an increased application of C. elegans that complements other model system in the reproductive toxicity.