Figure 2
Comparison of the effects of one phthalate as a function of the species. Testes at similar stage of development i.e. from 7–11 GW human foetuses, 14.5 day-old rat fetuses, or 13.5 day-old mouse foetuses were cultured using the FeTA system described in Figure 1. For each foetus, one testis was cultured in the absence (control) and the other one in the presence of MEHP at concentrations ranging from 10-6 to 2×10-4 M for 3 days. The daily testosterone secretion was measured by radioimmunoassay. Only values on the third day are presented here but results are similar for the other two days of treatment. Values (means ± SEM) are expressed as the percentage of the secretion of the treated testis compared with that of the control testis. MEHP had negative, positive or no effect with rat, mouse or human fetal testes respectively. Bisphenol A (BPA) at various concentrations was used as positive control for human fetal testes *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 compared with control testis using the Wilcoxon’s non-parametric paired test. From [1, 102, 109, 121].