The flame retardant and plasticizer, tetrabromobisphenol-A (TBBPA) has rapidly become a common component in the manufacture of circuit boards and plastics worldwide. It is also an analog of bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disrupting chemical identified by the Endocrine Society. As such, TBBPA needs to be investigated for similar potential human health risks. Using rats as a model, we exposed pregnant dams and their progeny to 0, 0.1, 25, or 250 mg TBBPA/kg of body weight until the offspring reached adulthood and assessed the first generation of males for any reproductive tract abnormalities. We found no differences in the morphology of testes, sperm, prostates, or secondary sex organs from post-natal day 21 through one-year of age. A delay in the time to preputial separation was found with the 250 mg/kg treatment. Also, minor differences of sperm count at one-year old with the 25 mg/kg treatment and expression levels of two steroidogenic pathway enzymes at either post-natal day 90 or one-year old in the 250 mg/kg treatment group were detected, but spermatogenesis was not disrupted. While these results may lead to the supposition that TBBPA is less harmful than its parent compound BPA, more studies need to be conducted to assess long-term exposure effects.

中文翻译：

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发育暴露于四溴双酚 A 对雄性大鼠生殖健康的影响最小。

阻燃剂和增塑剂四溴双酚 A (TBBPA) 已迅速成为全球电路板和塑料制造中的常见成分。它也是双酚 A (BPA) 的类似物，这是一种内分泌学会确定的内分泌干扰化学物质。因此，需要对 TBBPA 进行类似的潜在人类健康风险调查。使用大鼠作为模型，我们将怀孕的母鼠及其后代暴露于 0、0.1、25 或 250 毫克 TBBPA/kg 体重，直到后代成年，并评估第一代雄性的任何生殖道异常。我们发现从出生后第 21 天到一岁，睾丸、精子、前列腺或第二性器官的形态没有差异。250 mg/kg 治疗发现包皮分离时间延迟。还，检测到 25 mg/kg 治疗组 1 岁时的精子数量和 250 mg/kg 治疗组在出生后 90 天或 1 岁时两种类固醇生成途径酶的表达水平存在细微差异，但检测到精子发生没有受到干扰。虽然这些结果可能会导致假设 TBBPA 比其母体化合物 BPA 的危害更小，但需要进行更多的研究来评估长期接触影响。