Sex-specific impacts of prenatal bisphenol A exposure on genes associated with cortical development, social behaviors, and autism in the offspring's prefrontal cortex.

Background: Recent studies have shown that prenatal BPA exposure altered the transcriptome profiles of autism-related genes in the offspring's hippocampus, disrupting hippocampal neuritogenesis and causing male-specific deficits in learning. However, the sex differences in the effects of prenatal BPA exposure on the developing prefrontal cortex, which is another brain region highly implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), have not been investigated.

Methods: We obtained transcriptome data from RNA sequencing analysis of the prefrontal cortex of male and female rat pups prenatally exposed to BPA or control and reanalyzed.

Investigation of autism-related transcription factors underlying sex differences in the effects of bisphenol A on transcriptome profiles and synaptogenesis in the offspring hippocampus.

Background: Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to susceptibility to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our recent studies have shown that prenatal BPA exposure disrupted ASD-related gene expression in the hippocampus, neurological functions, and behaviors associated with ASD in a sex-specific pattern. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of BPA are still unclear.

Sex differences in the effects of prenatal bisphenol A exposure on autism-related genes and their relationships with the hippocampus functions.

Our recent study has shown that prenatal exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) altered the expression of genes associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, we further investigated the effects of prenatal BPA exposure on ASD-related genes known to regulate neuronal viability, neuritogenesis, and learning/memory, and assessed these functions in the offspring of exposed pregnant rats. We found that prenatal BPA exposure increased neurite length, the number of primary neurites, and the number of neurite branches, but reduced the size of the hippocampal cell body in both sexes of the offspring.