Pre-treatment with mild UV irradiation suppresses reproductive toxicity induced by subsequent cadmium exposure in nematodes

In nematodes, 10 J/m2/min of UV irradiation induced a mild reproductive toxicity. Pre-treatment with UV irradiation at 10 J/m2/min suppressed the formation of reproductive defects, and activated a noticeable reduction of percentage of population with hsp-16.2::gfp expression, an obvious elevation of superoxide dismutase activities, and decrease of oxidative damage in 50 and 100 μM Cd exposed nematodes; however, pre-treatment with UV irradiation at 20 J/m2/min caused a significant decrease of brood sizes or increase of generation times in Cd-exposed nematodes. Pre-treatment with mild UV irradiation did not suppress the formation of reproductive defects in 150 μM Cd-exposed nematodes. Furthermore, the adaptive response to reproductive toxicity from Cd exposure was not observed in a reactive oxygen species sensitive mev-1(kn1) mutant. Therefore, pre-treatment with mild UV irradiation triggers the resistance to reproductive toxicity from Cd exposure by at least partially inducing adaptation to oxidative stress and through a mev-1-dependent pathway.