Joan Ruderman (Harvard Medical School, United States of America) has recently evaluated this article at the Faculty of 1000 Biology. His comments are as follows:

"This paper shows that brief exposure of juvenile zebrafish to environmentally relevant levels of atrazine, the most common pesticide contaminant of surface and ground waters, induces expression of the estrogen-synthesizing enzyme aromatase in the developing gonad. Moreover, chronic developmental exposure to atrazine can reprogram gonadal development, leading to a significant increase in the ratio of female/male fish. At the mechanistic level, experiments carried out with a human placental cell line add to previous evidence that atrazine can increase aromatase gene expression via signal transduction pathways that converge on the steroidogenic transcription factor SF-1 (NR5A1). In addition to heightening concerns about atrazine's endocrine-disrupting effects on aquatic wildlife, this work is directly relevant to understanding how atrazine may contribute to the formation or maintenance of hormone-dependent tumors in humans".

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Best,

Niyaz Ahmed
Section Editor, PLoS ONE
Faculty Member, F1000Biology and F1000Medicine
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