Recent studies suggest that women with high exposures to
dibutyl phthalate (DBP) are at increased risk for
preterm birth, a condition associated with aberrant
inflammation in the placenta often caused by
subclinical infections. Placental
inflammation is also a risk factor for
neurodevelopmental disorders whose risk may also be enhanced by DBP. It is unclear, however, if DBP enhances placental
inflammation. Therefore, we studied the effects of DBP on the production of
biomarkers of placental
inflammation and neurodevelopment under basal conditions and a setting of mild
infection. Placental explant cultures established from women undergoing elective caesarean delivery were treated with DBP with and without co-stimulation by 107 CFU/mL heat-killed E. coli for 24 h at 37 °C.
Conditioned medium was harvested and concentrations of IL-1β, TNF-α,
IL-10, HO-1 and
BDNF, a
biomarker for neurodevelopment, were quantified. DBP significantly enhanced
IL-6 production in basal cultures but had no significant on the other
biomarkers quantified. Both TNF-α and IL-1β production was enhanced by DBP for cultures co-stimulated with E. coli. Although marginal enhancement of
IL-6, and
IL-10 were observed for bacteria co-treated cultures, results were either non-monotonic or only approached statistical significance. HO-1 production tended to be reduced at the highest concentration of DBP tested and
BDNF production was reduced by DBP in a dose-dependent manner for bacteria-stimulated cultures. These results suggest that DBP enhances basal
IL-6 production but has little or no effect on other
biomarkers studied. However, DBP enhances IL-1β and TNF-α production but reduces
BDNF production by bacteria-stimulated cultures.