Zinc Mitigates MDMA-Prompted Apoptosis by Alteration of Cross Talk Among Bcl-2, Bax and P53 Genes Expression in Mouse Sertoli and Leydig Cell Lines.
Reports of biochemistry & molecular biology October 1, 2024 Salar Mahmoudi-Nejad, Isa Abdirad, Morteza Bagheri
MDMA (ecstasy) triggers cell death in mouse Sertoli and Leydig cells by increasing expression of pro-apoptotic genes bax and p53 and decreasing anti-apoptotic bcl-2. Pre-treatment with 8 µM zinc largely prevented these changes: in Leydig cells, bax and p53 mRNA levels returned to control values; in Sertoli cells, bax and bcl-2 levels normalized. Zinc appears to protect against MDMA-induced apoptosis by modulating the interplay among bcl-2, bax, and p53 gene expression in these reproductive cell lines.