Adult female rats perinatally exposed to perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) and a mixture of endocrine disruptors display increased body/fat weights without a transcriptional footprint in fat cells

Obesity is a complex disease with many causes, including a possible role for environmental chemicals. Perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS) is one of many per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) frequently detected in humans and it is suspected to be an obesogenic compound. We examined the potential long-term effects of PFHxS on metabolic parameters in rats after developmental exposure to 0.05, 5 or 25 mg/kg bw/day, with or without co-exposure to a background mixture of twelve endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDmix). Both male and female offspring showed signs of lower birth weight following intrauterine exposure. Female offspring exposed to both PFHxS and EDmix had increased body weight in adulthood. The retroperitoneal fat pad was larger in the PFHxS-exposed female offspring when compared to those exposed to EDmix alone. An attempt to detect putative molecular markers in the fat tissue by performing whole transcriptome profiling revealed no significant changes between groups and there were no significant effects on plasma leptin levels in exposed females. Our results show that early life exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals can influence body weight later in life, but the effect is not necessarily reflected in changed gene expression in the fat tissue.