Sea urchin development: An alternative model for mechanistic understanding of neurodevelopment and neurotoxicity

Abstract

Echinoderm early developmental stages might supply a good tool for toxicity testing in different fields, ranging from environment to food contamination, and in full respect of the 3Rs objectives (reduction, refinement, and replacement of animal experiments) that will eventually lead to the replacement of high vertebrate animal testing in toxicology. Sea urchin is one of the few organismic models considered by the European Agency for Alternative models. Actually, sea urchin embryonic development has been studied for over a century, and the complex nets of intercellular communications leading to the different events are well known, as well the possibility for environmental molecules and their residuals to interfere with such communications, causing developmental anomalies. In particular, the main goal of toxicologists since several years has been to establish a correlation between the cell-to-cell communications occurring during different developmental events and the signals occurring during neurogenesis, with the aim to pursue a mechanistic understanding of these processes and their deviations caused by stressors from different sources.

Dose-dependent effects of chlorpyriphos, an organophosphate pesticide, on metamorphosis of the sea urchin, Paracentrotus lividus

“…Sea urchin early development and differentiation has been proved to be a suitable alternative model for the analysis of risk represented by environmental pollutants on environmental and human health (Buznikov et al 2001;Falugi et al 2008;Aluigi et al 2008). Sea urchin embryos and larvae are fully exposed to the environment, as their body is formed by thin cellular sheets, that expose their receptors to the rearing sea water.…”

Review: Morphofunctional and biochemical markers of stress in sea urchin life stages exposed to engineered nanoparticles

“…Other parameters are represented by enzymes related to detoxification, inflammation and neurotoxicity (e.g. ChE activities, Falugi et al, ; Falugi and Aluigi, ), and genomic markers by analyzing genes and transcripts (Aluigi et al, ) or gene alterations (Pagano et al, ). The same biomarkers have been used for assessing NPs risk.…”

Introductory Chapter: Sea Urchin - Knowledge and Perspectives

“…Upon being stung by this sea urchin, humans and animals could be poisoned, with difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, convulsion and other symptoms [46]. Several toxicological studies analyse the possibility that a number of environmental molecules and xenobiotics interfere with embryogenesis and cause developmental anomalies [47][48][49]. The effects of environmental anthropogenic factors on reproduction of the sea urchin Staphylococcus intermedius are considered in the second chapter of this book.…”