Application of a Biomarker Response Index for Ranking the Toxicity of Five Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) to the Bivalve Dreissena polymorpha

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have been detected in several aquatic ecosystems during the last two decades, but their potential for biological effects to nontarget organisms is only now being studied. The aim of this study was to compare and rank the cyto-genetic effects induced by 96-hour exposure to an environmental concentration (1 nM) of triclosan (TCS), trimethoprim (TMP), diclofenac (DCF), ibuprofen (IBU), and paracetamol (PCM) on the freshwater bivalve Dreissena polymorpha by integrating biological responses of eight biomarker into a simple biomarker response index (BRI). The application of the BRI decreased the wide biomarker variability and enabled toxicity ranking of the tested PPCPs as follow: TCS > TMP > IBU > DCF = PCM. This approach allowed us to draw an accurate PPCP scale of toxicity of the most dangerous drug and to address further in-depth investigations.

Oxidative and genetic responses induced by Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ-9-THC) to Dreissena polymorpha

“…This is particularly true if we compare the sub-lethal toxicity of 0.5 μg/L Δ-9-THC to zebra mussel specimens with that of the same concentration of other two illicit drug residues, the cocaine metabolites benzoylecgonine (BE; Parolini et al, 2013a) and ecgonine methyl ester (EME; Parolini and Binelli, in press), which was found to cause remarkable adverse effects to D. polymorpha specimens. In order to rank the chronic toxicity of these compounds to this bivalve species, we integrated the whole biomarker dataset obtained at the common concentration of 0.5 μg/L for the three molecules into a biomarker response index (BRI), according to the procedures previously described in detail by Parolini et al (2013b). The application of approaches integrating all biomarker data into a synthetic index, in fact, could help to minimize variation of responses (Hagger et al, 2006) and to allow an easier interpretation of complex ecotoxicological data (Moore et al, 2004;Sforzini et al, 2011).…”

Evaluation of ecotoxicological effects of drugs on Daphnia magna using different enzymatic biomarkers

“…Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) plays an important protective role by acting as a scavenger for high levels of hydrogen peroxide; during this process, glutathione is oxidized and loses its protective antioxidant potential (Nunes et al, 2006). Some pharmaceutical compounds may stimulate the production of ROS, eliciting oxidative damage to aquatic organisms including fish and invertebrates as verified in studies with acetaminophen (Solé et al, 2010;Gómez-Oliván et al, 2012;Antunes et al, 2013;Sung et al, 2014), chlorpromazine (Li et al, 2008), sodium diclofenac (Oviedo-Gómez et al, 2010;Parolini and Binelli, 2012;Parolini et al, 2013;Nava-Álvarez et al, 2014) and propranolol (Solé et al, 2010;Franzellitti et al, 2011).…”

Genotoxic and immunotoxic potential effects of selected psychotropic drugs and antibiotics on blue mussel (Mytilus edulis) hemocytes

“…Mammals receptors may be indeed conserved in invertebrates but not always their specific function, leading to unexpected chronic effects in these organisms (Crane et al, 2006). The effects of pharmaceuticals exposure on freshwater and marine bivalves ranged from the molecular level, such as disturbed enzyme functions, DNA damage, and modulated gene expression (Contardo-Jara et al, 2011;Franzellitti et al, 2013;Gonzalez-Rey and Bebianno, 2013;Parolini et al, 2013;Quinn et al, 2011), to cellular level with increased oxidative stress, cytotoxicity and immunotoxicity (Aguirre-Martínez et al, 2013;Binelli et al, 2009;Canesi et al, 2007;Gagn e et al, 2006a;Gust et al, 2012;MartinDiaz et al, 2009;Matozzo et al, 2012;Munari et al, 2014;Parolini et al, 2011;Tsiaka et al, 2013) to the fitness of organisms with embryotoxicity Hazelton et al, 2013;Di Poi et al, 2014), reprotoxicity (Bringolf et al, 2010;Cortez et al, 2012;Fong and Ford, 2014;Hazelton et al, 2014;Lazzara et al, 2012) and decrease of feeding rate (Sol e et al, 2010). While the effect characterization has already been addressed as one of the big question of pharmaceuticals in the environment (Boxall et al, 2012), their effects on invertebrates remained sometimes controversial.…”