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In utero benzene exposure in CD-1 mice results in increased fetal and placental size at gestational day 19, which is dependent upon intra-litter variables

2025· article· en· W4411635321 on OpenAlexafffund
Megan E Cull, Lauren M. Brown, Lihua Xue, Louise M. Winn

Bibliographic record

VenueReproductive Toxicology · 2025
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldMedicine
TopicBirth, Development, and Health
Canadian institutionsQueen's University
FundersCanadian Institutes of Health Research
KeywordsIn uteroLitterFetusAndrologyGestational ageGestationPregnancyPhysiologyMedicineObstetricsBiology

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Benzene is a common environmental pollutant and carcinogen. In a previous mouse study, we found that transplacental benzene exposure increased tumor incidence in offspring, with apparent sex differences. Mouse models are widely used in developmental toxicity studies; however, they are litter-bearing and show intra-litter variability. This study sought to determine if in utero benzene exposure affects fetal and placental growth with consideration for intra-litter variables. Pregnant CD-1 mice were exposed to corn oil (vehicle control) or 200 mg/kg benzene from gestational days (GD) 8-14 and sacrificed on GD 19. Fetal-placental units were grouped by exposure, sex, and uterine horn location. Fetus and placenta growth measurements were normalized to maternal weight gain and total live litter size or the number of live fetuses in the uterine horn. In utero benzene exposure did not affect fetal survival or the distribution of fetuses between sexes or uterine horns, but did significantly increase fetal and placental size, particularly in the left uterine horn. Both male and female fetuses showed increased weight, head-rump length, head circumference, and abdominal circumference, with the left horn most affected. Placental weight and diameter also increased, with larger placentas in the left horn. Fetal heart weight increased, especially in female fetuses. Placental efficiency was not significantly altered, though benzene-exposed females had higher efficiency than males. These findings suggest that benzene induces placental toxicity, leading to altered growth, and emphasize the need to account for intra-litter variability in xenobiotic-induced developmental toxicity studies.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame distilled prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.001
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.002
Version: codex-gemma-dda1882f352aValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.098
Threshold uncertainty score0.998

Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0010.002
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.000
Bibliometrics0.0000.001
Science and technology studies0.0000.000
Scholarly communication0.0000.000
Open science0.0000.000
Research integrity0.0000.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0000.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.014
GPT teacher head0.291
Teacher spread0.277 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations4
Published2025
Admission routes2
Has abstractyes

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