A tribute to Scott W. Burchiel, PHD

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA(is used in several industrial applications, and serves as a surfactant. It is persistent in the environment and is resistant to typical environmental degradation processes. Exposure to this contaminant has been shown to reduce the normal gastrointestinal flora, especially Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. Since exposure to this contaminant still occurs and it has been suggested that gut microbiota imbalance might accelerate the progression of liver disorders, we aimed to study the effect of synbiotics pretreatment on PFOA-induced hepatotoxicity.Herein, C57BL/6 J mice were administered 1, 5, 10, and 20 mg PFOA per kg body weight orally by gavage once daily up to 28 days. Another group was pretreated with synbiotic 4 h before receiving 10 mg PFOA/kg. Also, a control group received 2% Tween 80 orally as a vehicle of PFOA during the study. Plasma ALT, AST, TNF-α, HGF, IL-6, and IFN-γ were measured every week. In addition, a liver histopathological assessment was performed at the end of exposure studies.It was observed that exposure to PFOA can trigger inflammatory markers such as TNF-α, HGF, IL-6, and IFN-γ as well as hepatic enzymes AST and ALT in comparison with the control group. Synbiotic pretreatment prevented or statistically significant reduced the release of the inflammatory markers and the liver enzymes compared to PFOA only treated group.It could be inferred that having intact gut flora or even using synbiotic complements containing Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Streptococcus plus fructooligosaccharides as prebiotic is an appropriate strategy to reduce the negative effects of PFOA exposure.