BioScience tip sheet, December 2008( The December 2008 issue of BioScien...)

The December 2008 issue of BioScience includes a Special Section consisting of four articles on Endocrine Disruptors in the Environment, coordinated by Louis J. Guillette, Jr., of the University of Florida. The complete list of research articles in the issue is as follows:

Meeting the Challenges of Aquatic Vertebrate Ecotoxicology.
Michael J. Carvan III, John P. Incardona, and Matthew L. Rise.

As a model organism for ecotoxicology, the zebrafish can be used to develop mechanistic models of interactions between genes and the environment that will provide a foundation for genomic resources in other fish species. The result will be integrated models that will improve diagnosis of environmental disease and ecological risk assessments.

Special Section: Endocrine Disruptors in the Environment.
Alligator Tales: New Lessons about Environmental Contaminants from a Sentinel Species.
Matthew R. Milnes and Louis J. Guillette Jr.

Environmental exposure to contaminants has affected alligators' reproductive and endocrine systems. Field and laboratory studies support a mechanism based on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which interfere with the formation of gonadal steroids such as estrogen and the development of the reproductive tract.

Of Mice and Men (and Mosquitofish): Antiandrogens and Androgens in the Environment.
Andrew K. Hotchkiss, Gerald T. Ankley, Vickie S. Wilson, Phillip C. Hartig, Elizabeth J. Durhan, Kathleen M. Jensen, Dalma Martinovic, and Leon E. Gray Jr.

Androgens are hormones essential to the formation of the male reproductive tract in vertebrates. Environmental androgens have caused adverse effects in several fish species as well as humans. Antiandrogens, which include some pharmaceuticals as well as constituents of synthetic materials and fungicides, have been shown to disrupt sexual development in mammals and fish. Some of these chemicals too are widespread
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