Comparative assessment of embryotoxicity of 2,4,6-triiodophenol to mouse blastoid and pre-implantation embryo models

• Published in: Ecotoxicology and environmental safety Vol. 252; p. 114608
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xiaoqian, An, Shiyu, Liu, Siya, Qiu, Jingfan, Zhang, Wenyi, Zhou, Qing, Hou, Xiaojing, Yang, Yang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Inc 01.03.2023; Elsevier
• Subjects: 2,4,6-triiodophenol; Animals; Blastoid model; Drinking Water; Embryo, Mammalian; Embryonic Development; Embryotoxicity; Female; Mammals; Mice; Mouse preimplantation embryo model; Pregnancy; Reliability assessment; Reproducibility of Results; Embryotoxicity; Reliability assessment; Mouse preimplantation embryo model; Blastoid model; 2,4,6-triiodophenol
• ISSN: 0147-6513; 1090-2414
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.114608

Embryonic developmental effects of disinfection by-products, which are generated during drinking water treatment and widely detected in environment, have gained more and more attention nowadays, calling for construction of in vitro research models which can mimic early embryonic development to evaluate the embryotoxicity. The embryonic stem cell test offers a promising assay to predict embryotoxicity of environmental pollutions. However, it is not appropriate for the toxicological study of preimplantation embryos. Here, we used mouse extended stem cells (mEPS) to reconstruct embryo-like structures (blastoid), furtherly attempting to evaluate the reliability of this model for the prediction of possible developmental toxicity of 2,4,6-triiodophenol (TIP, 5–50 μM), a novel halogenated disinfection byproduct widely detected in water and even drinking water, to mammalian preimplantation embryo. To verify this, we treated mouse embryo derived from in vitro fertilization (IVF-embryo) as reference. The results showed that mEPS-blastoid was like natural blastocyst in morphology, cell composition, and could recapitulate key developmental events happened during mouse preimplantation stage. When blastoid and IVF-embryo models were separately exposed to TIP, their final blastocyst formation rates were not impaired, according to morphological features, meanwhile that TIP exposure caused slight cell apoptosis. Besides, TIP induced an ICM cell bias in cell fate decision, resulting in cell proportion change, which implied abnormal developmental potential. Though we could not evaluate TIP’s embryotoxicity before 8-cell stage using blastoid model, its viability as a novel and high-throughput assessment platform for increasing environmental pollutants was still recognized. [Display omitted] •A novel stem cell-derived model is proposed to recapitulate mouse pre-implantation embryo development.•Comparative assessment of TIP’s embryotoxicity verified model reliability.•TIP exposure did not impair blastocyst formation but resulted in cell apoptosis and cell fate bias, in both two models.•A few differences were found between the two models.