Immunotoxic effects of short-term atrazine exposure in young male C57BL/6 mice

The herbicide atrazine (ATR) is a very widely used pesticide; yet the immunotoxicological potential of ATR has not been studied extensively. Our objective was to examine the effect of ATR on selected immuneparameters in juvenilemice.ATR (up to 250mg/kg) was administered by oral gavage for 14 days to one-month-oldmale C57BL/6 mice. One day, one week, and seven weeks after the last ATR dose, mice were sacrificed, and blood, spleens, and thymuses were collected and processed for cell counting and flow cytometry. Thymus and spleen weights were decreased by ATR, with the thymus being more sensitive than the spleen; this effect was still present at seven days, but not at sevenweeks after the lastATRdose. Similarly, organ cellularitywas persistently decreased in the thymus and in the spleen, with the splenic, but not thymic cellularity still being depressed at seven weeks post ATR. Peripheral blood leukocyte counts were not affected by ATR. There were als