Cyanobacterial Xenobiotics as Evaluated by a Caenorhabditis elegans Neurotoxicity Screening Test

Jingjuan Ju, Nadine Saul, Cindy Kochan, Anke Putschew, Yuepu Pu, Lihong Yin and Christian E. W. Steinberg
Additional contact information
Jingjuan Ju: Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
Nadine Saul: Department of Biology, Freshwater and Stress Ecology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Späthstr. 80/81, Berlin 12437, Germany
Cindy Kochan: Chair of Water Quality Control, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, Berlin 10623, Germany
Anke Putschew: Chair of Water Quality Control, Technische Universität Berlin, Straße des 17. Juni 135, Berlin 10623, Germany
Yuepu Pu: Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
Lihong Yin: Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing 210009, China
Christian E. W. Steinberg: Department of Biology, Freshwater and Stress Ecology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Späthstr. 80/81, Berlin 12437, Germany

IJERPH, 2014, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: In fresh waters cyanobacterial blooms can produce a variety of toxins, such as microcystin variants (MCs) and anatoxin- a (ANA). ANA is a well-known neurotoxin, whereas MCs are hepatotoxic and, to a lesser degree, also neurotoxic. Neurotoxicity applies especially to invertebrates lacking livers. Current standardized neurotoxicity screening methods use rats or mice. However, in order to minimize vertebrate animal experiments as well as experimental time and effort, many investigators have proposed the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as an appropriate invertebrate model. Therefore, four known neurotoxic compounds (positive compounds: chlorpyrifos, abamectin, atropine, and acrylamide) were chosen to verify the expected impacts on autonomic (locomotion, feeding, defecation) and sensory (thermal, chemical, and mechanical sensory perception) functions in C. elegans . This study is another step towards successfully establishing C. elegans as an alternative neurotoxicity model. By using this protocol, anatoxin- a adversely affected locomotive behavior and pharyngeal pumping frequency and, most strongly, chemotactic and thermotactic behavior, whereas MC-LR impacted locomotion, pumping, and mechanical behavior, but not chemical sensory behavior. Environmental samples can also be screened in this simple and fast way for neurotoxic characteristics. The filtrate of a Microcystis aeruginosa culture, known for its hepatotoxicity, also displayed mild neurotoxicity (modulated short-term thermotaxis). These results show the suitability of this assay for environmental cyanotoxin-containing samples.

Keywords: C. elegans; neurotoxicity; automatic function; sensory function; anatoxin- a; microcystin-LR (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/5/4589/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/11/5/4589/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:11:y:2014:i:5:p:4589-4606:d:35501

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().