Advances in Single-Cell Toxicogenomics in Environmental Toxicology

Abstract

The toxicity evaluation system of environmental pollutants has undergone numerous changes due to the application of new technologies. Single-cell toxicogenomics is rapidly changing our view on environmental toxicology by increasing the resolution of our analysis to the level of a single cell. Applications of this technology in environmental toxicology have begun to emerge and are rapidly expanding the portfolio of existing technologies and applications. Here, we first summarized different methods involved in single-cell isolation and amplification in single-cell sequencing process, compared the advantages and disadvantages of different methods, and analyzed their development trends. Then, we reviewed the main advances of single-cell toxicogenomics in environmental toxicology, emphatically analyzed the application prospects of this technology in identifying the target cells of pollutants in early embryos, clarifying the heterogeneous response of cell subtypes to pollutants, and finding pathogenic bacteria in unknown microbes, and highlighted the unique characteristics of this approach with high resolution, high throughput, and high specificity by examples. We also offered a prediction of the further application of this technology and the revolution it brings in environmental toxicology. Overall, these advances will provide practical solutions for controlling or mitigating exogenous toxicological effects that threaten human and ecosystem health, contribute to improving our understanding of the physiological processes affected by pollutants, and lead to the emergence of new methods of pollution control.

High-Content Screening Discovers Microplastics Released by Contact Lenses under Sunlight

“…Microplastics can deposit in the conjunctival sac of mice, lead to a decrease in goblet cells, and cause ocular surface dysfunctions . Eye development of zebrafish embryos was affected by regulating the differentiation and fate of nerve cells under microplastic exposure. , In vitro tests on two kinds of human eye cells demonstrated that 50 nm or 2 μm polystyrene microplastics could enter cells and cause a concentration-dependent reduction in cell viability, further causing oxidative stress and cell apoptosis . Preimplantation human embryos and human induced pluripotent stem cells exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics resulted in the upregulation of two genes related to eye development, CA4 and OCLM .…”

G × E interactions as a basis for toxicological uncertainty

“…An outlook towards the future is provided by single cell sequencing approaches, where the response of individual cells in complex multi-cellular cultures can be characterized, and where cells with different genetic background can be combined in a single culture system. The technology is being made ready for toxicological applications (Liu et al 2022 ; Paisley and Liu 2021 ). Single-cell sequencing was applied to simple liver models already years ago (Zhang et al 2020 ).…”

Computational Models That Use a Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationship Approach Based on Deep Learning

“…have been used to detect mutagenicity in somatic cells, due to their association with carcinogenicity, using a short-term search method. Toxicogenomics, a genome-based toxicity-evaluation method, has recently come into use to investigate the causes of side effects of drugs and chemical substances, using the information obtained when side effects have occurred [9,10]. In other words, toxicogenomics is a basic technology for rapidly and efficiently predicting the toxicity and side effects of drug-candidate compounds.…”