Omotoyosi Adeyanju¹, M. Estefanía González-Alvarez¹ Aileen F. Keating¹ 

¹Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University 

Both perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA) are reproductive toxicants. However, their uterine impacts are not well characterized, although both induce biotransformation proteins in the ovary. The hypothesis investigated was that PFOA exposure alters uterine chemical biotransformation proteins and that co-exposure to DMBA would be additive. Thus, in this study, seven-week-old female mice were dosed per os from a pipette tip with to: 1) saline solution as vehicle control (CT; n = 10), 2) PFOA (2.5mg/kg; 2.5ppm; n = 9) for 15 d, and 3) PFOA (2.5mg/kg; 2.5ppm) per os from a pipette tip for 15 d and during the last 7 d, mice received DMBA (1 mg/kg) via i.p. injection (PFOA + DMBA; n = 10). Uterine protein abundance of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), cytochrome P450 (CYP) family 1, subfamily A, polypeptide 1 (CYP1A1), CYP family 1, subfamily B polypeptide 1 (CYP1B1) glutathione S-transferase isoforms mu (GSTM) and pi (GSTP) were analyzed by western blotting and unadjusted unpaired t-test. Basally, PFOA exposure decreased (P = 0.05) the abundance of CAT but tended to increase (P ≤ 0.1) in the PFOA+DMBA exposed relative to the PFOA-only mice. SOD1 abundance was increased (P ≤ 0.05) in the PFOA-exposed relative to the control uteri and tended (P ≤ 0.1) to increase in the PFOA+DMBA-exposed mice compared to CT. When basally compared, the abundance of GSTP was decreased (P ≤ 0.01) in PFOA-exposed mice and with PFOA+DMBA exposure. GSTM abundance decreased (P ≤ 0.05) with PFOA exposure and tended to decrease (P ≤ 0.01) with PFOA+DMBA exposure. These findings support that PFOA alters uterine chemical biotransformation protein abundance and that this response differs during co-exposure to DMBA.