Cadmium is a heavy metal, which is widely used in industry effecting human health through occupational and environmental exposure. In mammals it exerts multiple toxic effects and has been classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency fo...
Cadmium is a heavy metal, which is widely used in industry effecting human health through occupational and environmental exposure. In mammals it exerts multiple toxic effects and has been classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Several reports indicate that cadmium alters steroidogenesis both in vivo and in vitro, however little is known about the mechanisms that induce this misregulation. It was shown that cadmium treatment induced the transcription of steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) gene which important factor for steroidogenesis. A dosage-sensitive sex reversal-adrenal hypoplasia congenital-critical region on the X chromosome gene 1 (DAX-1) binding site has been identified in the human StAR promoter, and it has also been reported that DAX-1 exerts its negative effects by binding directly to SF-1, resulting in an inhibition of SF-1-mediated StAR gene transcription. In the present, study the effect of cadmium on the transcriptional regulation of DAX-1 gene in mouse leydig tumor cell line has been reported. Cadmium chloride concentrations of 50 mM were found to decrease DAX-1 and SF-1 mRNA expression. In addition cadmium significantly reduced DAX-1 promoter activity. Cadmium also decreased the binding of SF-1 to the DAX-1 promoter as assessed from the electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA). Taken together, the results might suggest that cadmium induced down-regulation of DAX-1 expression through the inhibition of the binding of SF-1 to the DAX-1 promoter.