Sperm Viability Greatly Reduced in Offspring of Animals Treated With Common Antibiotic Tetracycline

Sperm Viability Greatly Reduced in Offspring of Animals Treated With Common Antibiotic Tetracycline
2012 04 30

Jeanne Zeh, lead author of a paper published in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports today, examines a pseudoscorpion using a microscope operated by graduate student, and one of the co-authors, Melvin Bonilla. Zeh is an assistant professor in the Department of Biology in the University of Nevada, Reno’s College of Science. The paper is the first to report the transgenerational effects of tetracycline.

In a paper published April 27 in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno report that male pseudoscorpions treated with the antibiotic tetracycline suffer significantly reduced sperm viability and pass this toxic effect on to their untreated sons. They suggest that a similar effect could occur in humans and other species.

"This is the first research to show a transgenerational effect of antibiotics," David Zeh, chair of the Department of Biology in the College of Science, said. "Tetracycline has a significant detrimental effect on male reproductive function and sperm viability of pseudoscorpions - reducing viability by up to 25 percent - and now we know that effect is passed on to the next generation. We didn’t see the effect in subsequent generations."

The research involved a three-generation study of the pseudoscorpion, Cordylochernes scorpioides, a small scorpion-like arachnid. To control for genetic influences, in the first generation, brothers and sisters from each of 21 broods were either treated with weekly doses of tetracycline from birth to adulthood or were reared as untreated controls. Subsequent generations were not treated with tetracycline. The antibiotic had no effect on male or female body size, sperm number or female reproduction, they found.

In the article, lead author and assistant biology professor Jeanne Zeh surmises that tetracycline may induce epigenetic changes in male reproductive tissues that may be passed to sons -- changes that do not alter the sequence of DNA but rather alter the way genes are expressed.

The broad-spectrum antibiotic tetracycline is commonly used in animal production, antimicrobial therapy, and for curing arthropods infected with bacterial endosymbionts such as Wolbachia. Despite more than six decades of therapeutic and agricultural use that has resulted in the evolution of widespread bacterial resistance, tetracycline is still commonly used as an additive in animal feed and as an accessible antimicrobial therapy in developing countries.

The research involved University of Nevada, Reno undergraduate and graduate students and was part of a project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which is investigating factors contributing to low male fertility.

Source: sciencedaily.com

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

Ciudad Blanca Found? The lost city in Honduras
2013 05 23
Explorers have been searching on foot for Honduras’s mythical city for generations. Now, they seem to have found it from a tiny Cessna airplane, aided by million-dollar technology. Is the fabled lost city of Honduras hiding beneath the dense jungle canopy? The Mosquitia rain forests of Honduras and Nicaragua are, to put it mildly, thick jungle. As one travel guide notes, "While ...

Cheetah-bot races into your post-apocalyptic nightmares
2013 05 23
An ongoing robotics project at MIT aiming to recreate the gait of a cheetah is sharing a new video showing off the latest progress. There’s a long way to go before anyone would call it catlike, but it’s impressive nevertheless. MIT Cheetah The Biomimetic Robotics Lab at MIT is attempting to create things much like those being made by the more well-known ...

When an Army of Artists Fooled Hitler
2013 05 23
Shortly after the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, two Frenchmen on bicycles managed to cross the perimeter of the United States Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and what they saw astounded them. Four American soldiers had picked up a 40-ton Sherman tank and were turning it in place. Soldier Arthur Shilstone says, “They looked at me, and they were ...

Why Did Penguins Stop Flying?
2013 05 23
Researchers from the University of Manitoba have shown that birds can either be very good at flying or swimming, but not both. And they’ve been studying a very awkward seabird to prove it. Animals that can fly really have it good. Flight allows for quick getaways, aerial view hunting, expanded territorial ranges, and the ability to travel vast distances when making ...

2 Agents From Team Involved in Tsarnaev’s Arrest Fall Out of Helicopter and Die
2013 05 23
Details are few at this point, but it’s being reported via several media outlets that two members of the special FBI Hostage Rescue Team (involved in arresting 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) have died after "falling from a helicopter" into the ocean. The Hostage Rescue Team is "part of the Tactical Support Branch of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. It is based ...

More News »