Transcription profiling of rat testes following exposure to mono-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate

In rodent models, phthalate exposure alters both the fetal and pubertal testis, but the resulting histopathological changes are divergent. This suggests that the underlying molecular and cellular phthalate mechanism may be age-dependent. Using genome-wide expression profiling of acutely-exposed rats, the initial molecular response in pubertal rat testis following in vivo phthalate exposure was determined. For this study, postnatal day 28 rats were exposed to a single dose of 1 g/kg mono-(2-ethyl)hexyl phthalate (MEHP) and assayed at 1, 2, 3, 6, and 12 hrs thereafter using Affymetrix Rat Genome 230 2.0 Arrays. Experiment Overall Design: At each timepoint, testes from 3 treated and 3 control (corn oil gavage) were analzyed.