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Most of endocrine disrupters (EDs) have been reported to exhibit estrogenic or anti-androgenic activity and thereby may disrupt reproductive development in human or wildlife. This study was performed to investigate the effects of estrogen (E2), bisphenol (BP) and octylphenol (OP) on the mouse Leydig cell line (TM3). TM3 originated from testis of 11~13-daly-old BALB/c nu/＋ mice was cultured in DMEM supplemented with 10％ FBS alone or medium with estrogen (E2), bisphenol (BP) and octylphenol (OP; 1 pM, 1 nM, 1 μM, 1 mM, respectively) for 48 hours. After culture, total cell number and viability were assessed by heamocyto-meter and trypan blue stain. Expression of cytochrome P450scc (CYPscc) mRNA whose product is involved in steroid hormone biosynthesis and estrogen receptor α(ER α) mRNA were detected by RT-PCR. As a result, treatment of TM3 with E2, BP and OP(1 mM, respectively) significantly decreased the viability but not all of groups as high as 1 μM. Exposure of TM3 to OP significantly reduced the total cell number but not E2 or BP. The expression of CYPscc mRNA was slightly reduced in BP (1 nM, 1 μM) and significantly decreased in OP (1 nM, 1 μM) treated TM3, except E2 group. But the expression of ER α mRNA was sightly increased in all treated groups. In conclusion, BP and OP (high concentration) might inhibit steroidogenesis by decreasing the CYPscc mRNA expression in the mouse testis. These results suggest that BP and OP might impair spermatogenesis and subsequently disturb testicular function.
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