Publication details
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 | SETAC Europe 15th Annual Meeting, Book of Abstracts |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Environment influence on health |
| Keywords | GFP; genotoxicity; azaarene |
| Description | Azaarenes are nitrogen containing polyaromatic heterocyclic compounds. The majority of the azaarenes found in the environment originate from anthropogenic sources. Concentrations of NPAHs found in the environment are reported to be one to two orders of magnitude lower than PAH concentrations, yet 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 were investigated. To assess the toxic and genotoxic activity a GFP assay based on the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was selected. To compare the sensitivity of this eukaryotic short-term assay with bacterial screening tests, the 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 with respect to the correlation of positive/negative responses, but much more sensitive with respect to the effective concentration values. In the 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 possess mutagenic potential at low concentrations. |
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