Endocrine Abstracts

Low testosterone levels are one of the causes of male infertility since testosterone is a crucial hormone for the regular functioning of the male reproductive tract. Testosterone is produced by Leydig cells (LC) in a process called testicular steroidogenesis, and if these cells are injured in any way, then the steroid production may be compromised. Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) are a group of substances that disturbs hormonal signaling. Their chemical nature and mode of action are diverse and chromium, a heavy metal, has been classified among EDCs. Trivalent chromium (Cr(III)) is one form of chromium controversially considered an essential metal. Chromium (III) picolinate (CrPic3) is a Cr(III) organic salt that is used as a nutritional supplement due to its antidiabetic properties, among others, despite the controversies surrounding the safety of Cr(III). The main effect identified in LC was the inhibition of enzymes involved in steroidogenesis, while in other somatic cells, CrPic3 appears to induce mutagenesis and apoptosis. The production of testosterone seems to be affected by this supplement, however we found conflicting results on this subject. In this work we aimed to evaluate whether CrPic3 displays cytotoxic effects in the murine LC line BLTK1, to understand if it could affect this population of cells and the production of testosterone. The cytotoxicity assays preformed with 5 different concentrations of CrPic3 (0.1, 1, 10 and 100 μM) showed that this supplement does not significantly affect the proliferation, viability of cell membrane integrity of these cells. These results suggest that CrPic3 the LC themselves are not harmed by the supplement, however our ongoing work is now focused on understanding if testosterone production is compromised.