Potential involvement of ferroptosis in BPA-induced neurotoxicity: An in vitro study

Background: Ferroptosis is a newly recognized cell death pathway having distinct characteristics compared to traditional cell death pathways such as apoptosis, necroptosis, or autophagy. However, the potential involvement of ferroptosis in bisphenol A (BPA)-induced neurotoxicity has not been well explored so far. In present study, we analyzed the relationship between ferroptosis and BPA-induced neurotoxicity.

Methods: In this study, a human neuroblastoma cell line, SH-SY5Y, was treated with BPA, ferrostatin-1 (FS-1, ferroptosis inhibitor) and RSL-3 (ferroptosis inducer). The cell viability was measured using MTT assay. Additionally, the levels of lipid peroxidation, total iron content, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and nitrite content were measured to evaluate the key markers of ferroptosis. To further confirm the involvement of ferroptosis in BPA-induced neurotoxicity, other ferroptosis markers such as glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity, total glutathione contents and antioxidant parameters were also evaluated.

Results: The cell viability of SH-SY5Y cells was down-regulated by BPA treatment in a concentration-dependent manner, the cell viability at 0.1 µM concentration was 97.63% whereas at highest BPA concentration i.e. 10 µM, the cell viability was 86.05% (p < 0.0001). Also the antioxidant parameters including catalase and superoxide dismutase activity of neuronal cells were down-regulated upon BPA exposure. However, the levels of lipid peroxidation, total iron, reactive oxygen species, and nitrite contents were increased in a concentration-dependent manner which could be rescued by FS-1 and exacerbated by RSL-3. The total iron in SH-SY5Y cells at 0.1 µM concentration was found to be 1.2 fold (p < 0.05) of control and at highest BPA concentration total iron was about 1.41 fold (p < 0.001) of control.

Conclusions: The present study indicated that, ferroptosis plays an important role in the progression of BPA-induced neurotoxicity, and ferroptosis may become a novel target in the treatment of various neurological disorders.