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Published online 18 June 2008 | Nature 453, 964 (2008) | doi:10.1038/453964a
News: Q&A
Lab disinfectant harms mouse fertility
Cage-cleaning chemicals cause birth defects and fertility problems in mice.
Two chemicals widely used in cleaning agents for homes, offices and hospitals cause birth defects and fertility problems in mice whose cages have been in contact with them, according to Patricia Hunt at Washington State University in Pullman. The quaternary ammonium compounds ADBAC (n-alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride) and DDAC (didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride) were identified after an exhaustive search for what was causing a massive drop-off in mouse fertility after Hunt moved her research animals to Pullman from Case Western Reserve Medical School in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2005.
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I am heartened to see an issue like this one raised in a high profile journal like Nature, since many important everyday factors affecting the behaviour and physiology of laboratory rodents are buried in specialist journals. However, I am disappointed on two counts. Firstly, the strap line and abstract treat the ‘finding’ as proven, but it is only halfway through the interview that readers are informed that no controlled studies have successfully been performed. If it was only “after several months� that contamination between the experimental and control groups occurred, it seems strange that no difference between the groups was seen, if the detergent really had a strong effect. Suddenly I am less convinced. Secondly, the potential relevance to human health is put forward far too strongly. For example, many solvents inadvertently mimic cat odour, which rodents and rabbits are innately fearful of (e.g. Heale et al., 1994). When predator odour – or presumably a solvent that smells like predator odour – is introduced into rodent cages, their reproductive success can plummet (e.g. Apfelbach et al., 2005; Vosnesenskaya et al., 2005). If this is what is happening here, the detergent would presumably not harm human fertility because we do not innately fear predator odour in the same way as rodents do – since predation of humans by cats is very rare, notwithstanding lions and tigers.
We recently had firsthand experience of this in our lab, when Quatricide, which is used in our facility as a floor cleaner and also contains quaternary ammonium compounds, was mistakenly used to disinfect forceps used during cage changing. We had many deaths in the following week, and now, 5 weeks later, we're having fertility problems with the survivors. Our institute has since changed its operating procedures so that this mistake cannot happen again.