Phthalates Induce Neurotoxicity Affecting Locomotor and Thermotactic Behaviors and AFD Neurons through Oxidative Stress in Caenorhabditis elegans
Figure 3
Effects of phthalates exposure on AFD thermosensory neurons in C. elegans.
Synchronized DA1267 L1 larvae were incubated in liquid S-basal containing E. coli OP50 bacteria, at 109 cells/mL or 0.1% ethanol as the solvent control, for 40 h, at 20°C. Subsequently, L4-stage nematodes were incubated in K-medium, with or without DEHP (2 and 20 ppm), DBP (500 and 1000 ppm), and DIBP (100 and 1000 ppm), for 24 h at 20°C. (A) Representative images of morphological patterns of AFD sensory neurons labeled with Pgcy-8::GFP, after DEHP exposure. (B) Relative sizes of fluorescent puncta for cell bodies of AFD sensory neurons. (C) Relative fluorescence intensities in cell bodies of AFD sensory neurons. Relative sizes of fluorescent puncta and relative fluorescence intensities were calculated by normalizing to that of the control. Approximately 30 worms from each treatment, at each time point, were randomly selected for analysis. The tests were performed a minimum of 3 times. The results were presented as the mean ± standard errors of mean (SEM). Differences compared to the control (0 ppm, 0.1% ethanol) were considered significant at P<0.05 by one-way ANOVA and the LSD post-hoc test.