ABSTRACT
Studies of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) have raised concerns that environmental toxicants possibly impact reproductive health by disrupting programming of endocrine signaling pathways during development. Indeed, indications of a global decline in sperm production capacity in the adult population as well as a higher incidence of newborn urogenital anomalies, testicular cancer, and obesity in the population have been associated with the marked increase in use of industrial chemicals in the last few decades. Chemical exposures occurring in the fetal period are linked to altered sexual differentiation, and consequently, postnatal reproductive development. Diverse cell types expressing FSH, LH, steroid hormone receptors, growth factors, and other cytokines that act as autocrine or paracrine regulators populate the testis. Given the complexity of cell associations in the seminiferous epithelium, disruption of individual testicular cells by chemical toxicants has the potential to alter the pattern of cell-cell interactions necessary to optimize testicular function. This chapter identifies a number of toxicant effects in testicular cells and discusses the potential for disruption of testicular cell-cell interactions. Further studies are warranted to delineate chemical-induced changes in transcriptional regulation of germ cell development in order to generate mechanistic data to support risk assessment of the population.
