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Phytoplankton is highly productive in marine coastal ecosystems that generally present high levelsof anthropogenic pressures. Microalgae presents very high surface-to-volume ratio and may respondpromptly to contaminants showing either an increase in growth or inhibition effects. Thus phyto-plankton organisms provide information on the potential impacts of contaminants on the supportedmarine-coastal food webs. The diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum Bohlin is commonly used in toxic-ity testing according to the ISO 10253:2006 standardised protocol, but a comprehensive inventory oftested substances has not been compiled yet. The aim of this study is to establish a wastewater effectscore based on P. tricornutum exposed to domestic, municipal and industrial wastewaters from activatedsludge sequencing batch reactor and ultra-filtration membrane biological reactors. Wastewater samplesproduced stimulation and inhibition effects identified by biostimulation unit (BU50) and toxicity unit(TU50) both at 50% effect, respectively. Within the stimulation scenario, toxicity was low if 0 < BU50≤ 0.31,medium if 0.31 < BU50≤ 1.05, high if 1.05 < BU50≤ 1.64, and very high if BU50> 1.64. Within the inhibitionscenario, toxicity was low if 0 < TU50≤ 0.07, medium if 0.07 < TU50≤ 2.67, high if 2.67 < TU50≤ 5.86, andvery high if TU50> 5.86. Results evidenced that nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were not corre-lated to ecotoxicological values, probably due to the presence of undetected micronutrients, confirmingthe importance of toxicity-based hazard assessment

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The aim of this study was to evaluate whether water soluble compounds present in aqueous extracts from seven Mediterranean demosponges exert biological activity towards matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which represent important pathogenic factors of human diseases. Aqueous extracts were tested on LPS-activated cultured rat astrocytes, and levels and expression of MMP-2 and MMP-9 were assessed by zymography and RT-PCR, respectively. Our results demonstrated that the studied extracts contain water soluble compounds able to inhibit MMP-2 and MMP-9 activity and expression. We also compared the anti-MMP activities present in aqueous extracts from wild and reared specimens of Tethya aurantium and T. citrina. The results obtained revealed that the reared sponges maintain the production of bioactive compounds with inhibitory effect on MMP-2 and MMP-9 for all the duration of the rearing period. Taken together, our results indicate that the aqueous extracts from the selected Mediterranean demosponges possess a variety of water-soluble bioactive compounds, which are able to inhibit MMPs at different levels. The presence of biological activity in aqueous extracts from reared specimens of T. aurantium and T. citrina strongly encourage sponge aquaculture as a valid option to supply sponge biomass for drug development on a large scale.

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