The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Toxicol.
Sec. Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology
Volume 6 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/ftox.2024.1481385
This article is part of the Research Topic New thoughts on emerging and classical contributors to male reproductive toxicology View all 5 articles
Light pollution: Time to consider testicular effects
Provisionally accepted- 1 Genomics Institute, The Lundquist Institute, Torrance, United States
- 2 Division of Endocrinology, Harbor–UCLA Medical Center, Torrance, California, United States
Technological advances have led to a modern-day lighting and smartphone revolution, with artificial light exposure at night increasing to levels never before seen in the evolutionary history of living systems on Earth. Light as a pollutant, however, remains largely unrecognized, and the reproductive effects of light pollution are mostly if not entirely unconsidered. This is despite the reproductive system being intricately linked to metabolism and the circadian system, both of which can be disturbed even by low levels of light. Here, we aim to change this perspective by reviewing the physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms by which light exposure alters the intricate hormonal, metabolic and reproductive networks that are relevant to reproductive toxicology.Nascent human studies have recently identified the photoreceptors responsible for the light dose relationship with melatonin suppression and circadian re-entrainment, directly shown the association between the alignment of light-dark cycles with activity-rest cycles on metabolic health and provided proof-of-principle that properly timed blue light-enriched and blue light-depleted delivery can accelerate circadian re-entrainment. With these advances, there is now a need to consider testicular effects of light pollution.
Keywords: Leydig cell, Testosterone, circadian, Fertility, clock
Received: 15 Aug 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Peter Y. Liu, Genomics Institute, The Lundquist Institute, Torrance, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.