Characterization of Glyphosate-Induced Cardiovascular Toxicity and Apoptosis in Zebrafish Embryos

Abstract

Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide, brings new hazards to human health. However, the developmental toxicity of glyphosate, particularly cardiovascular development, was still largely unknown. In order to understand how glyphosate affects development, we performed toxicity tests for zebrafish embryos that were continuously exposed to glyphosate. The results indicated that glyphosate affected the overall development of zebrafish embryos, including mortality, hatching abnormalities, and shortened body length. At the same time, zebrafish embryos exposed to glyphosate (0, 30, 90 μg/mL) exhibited cardiac malformations, including enlarged chambers, thinned ventricular walls and rhythm disturbances. In addition, defective intersegmental vasculature occurred after glyphosate exposure, indicating impaired angiogenesis. Mechanistically apoptosis clustered in the heart and vascular regions and levels of the apoptosis-related gene including caspase-3 , caspase-9 , bax , and bcl-2 were altered. In summary, our data demonstrated that glyphosate induced cardiovascular toxicity through caspase-dependent apoptosis pathways.

Keywords: Glyphosate, Developmental toxicity, Cardiovascular toxicity, Apoptosis, Zebrafish