Background

Parabens are frequently used as antimicrobial preservatives in various commercials, pharmaceutical products, and foods. Recent studies have suggested that the exposure of pregnant women to methylparaben has adverse effects on the fetus. However, the biological mechanisms underlying the effects of methylparaben on human placental cells are yet to be elucidated.

Objective

In this study, we determined that methylparaben induces cell death by affecting the growth, cell-cycle arrest, and apoptosis of human placental BeWo cells. We employed flow cytometry at the single-cell level for analyzing the expression of proteins related to cell cycle and apoptosis instead of using conventional methods.

Results

The results demonstrated that treatment with methylparaben significantly decreased cell viability. We observed that methylparaben increased the protein level of cyclin B1, which arrested the cell cycle at sub-G1 status, and decreased the proportion of BeWo cells in the G2/M phase. We also observed that methylparaben induced caspase-3-mediated apoptosis in a time- and dose-dependent manner.

Conclusion

These results suggested that methylparaben had cytotoxic adverse effects on human BeWo placenta cells through the induction of apoptosis and cell-cycle arrest.

中文翻译：

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对羟基苯甲酸甲酯诱导人胎盘BeWo细胞的细胞周期停滞和caspase-3介导的凋亡

背景

对羟基苯甲酸酯经常在各种商业广告，药品和食品中用作抗菌防腐剂。最近的研究表明，孕妇暴露于对羟基苯甲酸甲酯会对胎儿产生不利影响。然而，尚未阐明对羟基苯甲酸甲酯对人胎盘细胞影响的生物学机制。

目的

在这项研究中，我们确定对羟基苯甲酸甲酯通过影响人胎盘BeWo细胞的生长，细胞周期停滞和凋亡来诱导细胞死亡。我们采用单细胞水平的流式细胞仪来分析与细胞周期和细胞凋亡相关的蛋白质表达，而不是使用常规方法。

结果

结果表明，用对羟基苯甲酸甲酯处理显着降低了细胞活力。我们观察到对羟基苯甲酸甲酯增加了细胞周期蛋白B1的蛋白水平，从而使细胞周期处于亚G1状态，并降低了BeWo细胞在G2 / M期的比例。我们还观察到对羟基苯甲酸甲酯以时间和剂量依赖性方式诱导caspase-3介导的细胞凋亡。

结论

这些结果表明对羟基苯甲酸甲酯通过诱导凋亡和细胞周期停滞对人BeWo胎盘细胞具有细胞毒性不良作用。