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Methylmercury-Induced Toxicopathologic Findings in Salivary Glands of Offspring Rats After Gestational and Lactational Exposure

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Abstract

Methylmercury (MeHg) is one of the main global pollutants. The vulnerability of fetus and newborn to MeHg-induced changes is extensively reported, making relevant investigation possible for alternative sample matrix for human biological monitoring for at this stage of life. This study aimed to characterize tissue change effects of environmental–experimental MeHg on salivary glands of offspring rats after pre- and postnatal exposure. For this, pregnant Wistar rats were orally exposed to MeHg (40 μg/kg BW/day) or only vehicle (control group), from the gestational period to the end of the lactation period. Salivary glands (SG) were collected from the offspring to analyze possible Hg levels and main findings by histopathological evaluations and CK19 and α-SMA immunostaining. The results indicated that Hg levels in SG of intoxicated offspring were associated with histologic abnormalities, such as acinar atrophy and an increase in the intercellular matrix among the acini, as well as damages in the architecture of epithelium and myoepithelial cells, evidenced by a decrease in immunostaining area. Thus, this is the first study to show in the literature the toxicopathologic findings on SG of offspring after pre- and postnatal exposure to MeHg. Moreover, it presents the SG as an attractive target to futures studies, mainly in children exposed to environmentally relevant doses.

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The quantitative and qualitative data used to support the findings of this study are included within the article.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Federal University of Pará and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul for technical and scientific support.

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Pro-Rectory of Federal University of Pará (PROPESP, UFPA, Brazil), Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), and Programa Nacional de Cooperação Acadêmica na Amazônia—PROCAD/Amazônia by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES). This study was financed in part by the CAPES —Finance Code 001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Functional and Structural Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Para, Rua Augusto Corrêa n° 1, Campus do Guamá, Belém, Pará, 66075-110, Brazil

    Priscila Cunha Nascimento, Maria Karolina Martins Ferreira & Rafael Rodrigues Lima

  2. School of Dentistry, Institute of Health Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Karolyny Martins Balbinot, Sérgio Melo Alves-Júnior & João de Jesus Viana Pinheiro

  3. Department of Oral Pathology, School of Dentistry, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Felipe Martins Silveira & Manoela Domingues Martins

  4. Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Pará, Belém, Pará, Brazil

    Maria Elena Crespo-Lopez

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  1. Priscila Cunha Nascimento
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  2. Maria Karolina Martins Ferreira
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  8. Maria Elena Crespo-Lopez
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Correspondence to Rafael Rodrigues Lima.

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All procedures were reviewed and approved by the ethics committee on animal experimentation of the UFPA (protocol number 8613011217/CEUA-UFPA), according to the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals [24]. Besides, this study followed the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines (Table S1) [25].

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Nascimento, P.C., Ferreira, M.M., Balbinot, K.M. et al. Methylmercury-Induced Toxicopathologic Findings in Salivary Glands of Offspring Rats After Gestational and Lactational Exposure. Biol Trace Elem Res 199, 2983–2991 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-020-02409-z

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