Publication details

In vitro and in vivo genotoxicity of oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Authors

MCCARRICK Sarah CUNHA Virginia ZAPLETAL Ondřej VONDRÁČEK Jan DREIJ Kristian

Year of publication 2019
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Environmental Pollution
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749118336212
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2018.12.092
Keywords Genotoxicity; Oxygenated PAH; Comet assay; Micronucleus assay; Zebrafish
Description Oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (oxy-PAHs) are a group of environmental pollutants found in complex mixtures together with PAHs. In contrast to the extensively studied PAHs, which have been established to have mutagenic and carcinogenic properties, much less is known about the effects of oxy-PAHs. The present work aimed to investigate the genotoxic potency of a set of environmentally relevant oxy-PAHs along with environmental soil samples in human bronchial epithelial cells (HBEC). We found that all oxy-PAHs tested induced DNA strand breaks in a dose-dependent manner and some of the oxy-PAHs further induced micronuclei formation. Our results showed weak effects in response to the oxy-PAH containing subfraction of the soil sample. The genotoxic potency was confirmed in both HBEC and HepG2 cells following exposure to oxy-PAHs by an increased level of phospho-Chk1, a biomarker used to estimate the carcinogenic potency of PAHs in vitro. We further exposed zebrafish embryos to single oxy-PAHs or a binary mixture with PAH benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) and found the mixture to induce comparable or greater effects on the induction of DNA strand breaks compared to the sum of that induced by B[a]P and oxy-PAHs alone. In conclusion, oxy-PAHs were found to elicit genotoxic effects at similar or higher levels to that of B[a]P which indicates that oxy-PAHs may contribute significantly to the total carcinogenic potency of environmental PAH mixtures. This emphasizes further investigations of these compounds as well as the need to include oxy-PAHs in environmental monitoring programs in order to improve health risk assessment.

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.

More info