Azoxystrobin exposure impairs meiotic maturation by disturbing spindle formation in mouse oocytes

Wen Gao; Chen Zhang; Bichun Li; Jeong Su Oh

doi:10.3389/fcell.2022.1053654

Azoxystrobin exposure impairs meiotic maturation by disturbing spindle formation in mouse oocytes

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 Dec 2:10:1053654. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.1053654. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Wen Gao^{1

2}, Chen Zhang^{1

3}, Bichun Li², Jeong Su Oh^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Integrative Biotechnology, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea.
² College of Animal Science and Technology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China.
³ RNA Medicine Center, International Institutes of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
⁴ Biomedical Institute for Convergence at SKKU (BICS), Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea.

Abstract

Fungicides are a type of pesticide used to protect plants and crops from pathogenic fungi. Azoxystrobin (AZO), a natural methoxyacrylate derived from strobilurin, is one of the most widely used fungicides in agriculture. AZO exerts its fungicidal activity by inhibiting mitochondrial respiration, but its cytotoxicity to mammalian oocytes has not been studied. In this study, we investigated the effect of AZO exposure on mouse oocyte maturation to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of its possible reproductive toxicity. We found that AZO exposure disturbed meiotic maturation by impairing spindle formation and chromosome alignment, which was associated with decreased microtubule organizing center (MTOC) integrity. Moreover, AZO exposure induced abnormal mitochondrial distribution and increased oxidative stress. The AZO-induced toxicity to oocytes was relieved by melatonin supplementation during meiotic maturation. Therefore, our results suggest that AZO exposure impairs oocyte maturation not only by increasing oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction, but also by decreasing MTOC integrity and subsequent spindle formation and chromosome alignment.

Keywords: MTOC; azoxystrobin; melatonin; oocyte maturation; spindle formation.