Impact of intrauterine exposure to the insecticide coragen on the developmental and genetic toxicity in female albino rats

ABSTRACT

Coragen 20 SC is a new insecticide that contains the active ingredient chlorantraniliprole, which has been approved for use against insects in many crops due to the presence of insect ryanodine receptors. The present study aims to evaluate the intrauterine exposure to coragen in pregnant rats and their fetuses from 6^th to 20^th day of gestation. The pregnant dams were orally administrated saline (control), 100 mg/kg (low dose) or 200 mg/kg (high dose) of coragen. The mothers of two treated groups showed teratogenic anomalies such as asymmetrical distribution of fetuses in the two uterine horns, as well as, observed resorption, bleeding in the uteri while, their fetuses had growth retardation, morphological malformations and some skeletal perversions in addition to some dead fetuses were recorded. Furthermore, multiple histopathological changes occurred and a significant DNA damage was induced by coragen in maternal and fetal liver and kidney tissues compared to the control. Gestational coragen treatment resulted in teratogenic and genotoxic effect on pregnant rats and their fetuses. The obtained results in the present study imply that women and their fetuses may have the same risk.

KEYWORDS:

• Coragen
• teratogenicity
• malformation
• histopathology
• DNA damage
• pregnant rats

Acknowledgments

Authors acknowledge the Genetics Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt, where comet assay was performed.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Availability of data and materials

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

Declarations

Ethical approval

Experimental protocols and procedures used in this study were approved by the Cairo University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (CU-IACUC) at Cairo University, Faculty of Science (Egypt) (approval no. CU/I/F/56/19), in accordance with the international guidelines for care and use of laboratory animals.

Authors’ contributions

A.R.O., A.E.D. and H.B. conceived, designed, planned and supervised the study. A.R.O., M.M.A and H.B. performed the experiments, analyzed and graphed data, interpreted results and wrote initial draft of the manuscript. A.R.O., A.E.D. and H.B. critically revised and edited the manuscript. All authors read the final manuscript and approved submission.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.