GFP assay as a sensitive eukaryotic screening model to detect toxic and genotoxic activity of azaarenes
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2005 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | ECOTOX 2005 Book of abstracts |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Environment influence on health |
| Keywords | GFP; genotoxicity; azaarene |
| Description | Azaarenes contain nitrogen atom in place of a carbon atom. The majority of the azaarenes found in the environment originates from anthropogenic sources. Concentrations of NPAHs found in the environment are reported to be one to two orders of magnitude lower than PAH concentrations, but their biological effects can be of similar magnitude. Very few studies on the genotoxicity of azaarenes are available in the literature. In the present study, a preliminary profile of both the toxic and genotoxic potential of 5 PAHs and their 20 aza-analogues was investigated. To assess the toxic and genotoxic activity a GPF assay based on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was selected. To compare the sensitivity of this eukaryotic short-term assay with bacterial screening tests, Toxi-Chromotest for toxicity and SOS-Chromotest for genotoxicity assessment were also performed. This comparison indicates that in most cases the yeast GFP assay is apparently of comparable specificity to the bacterial toxicity or genotoxicity tests concerning correlation of positive/negative responses, but much more sensitive concerning effective concentration values. In cases of phenazine, phenanthridine, 1,10-phenanthroline or 4,7-phenanthroline one to two orders of magnitude lower EC20 and MGC values in the yeast GFP assay were observed. In this study we present evidence that genotoxicity assessment using the yeast GFP assay can provide a simple system to monitor the activity of these environmental pollutants that could posses mutagenic potential at low concentrations. |
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