Toxicity of fullerene (C₆₀) to sediment‐dwelling invertebrate Chironomus riparius larvae

Abstract

An environmentally realistic method to test fullerene (C(60) ) toxicity to the benthic organism Chironomus riparius was created by allowing suspended fullerenes to settle down, making a layer on top of the sediment. To test the hypothesis that higher food concentrations will reduce toxic responses, two food concentrations were tested (0.5 and 0.8% Urtica sp.) in sediment containing fullerene masses of 0.36 to 0.55 mg/cm(2) using a 10-d chronic test. In the 0.5% food level treatments, there were significant differences in all growth-related endpoints compared with controls. Fewer effects were observed for the higher food treatment. Fullerene agglomerates were observed by electron microscopy in the gut, but no absorption into the gut epithelial cells was detected. In the organisms exposed to fullerenes, microvilli were damaged and were significantly shorter. The potential toxicity of fullerene to C. riparius appears to be caused by morphological changes, inhibiting larval growth.

Fullerenes(nC60) affect the growth and development of the sediment-dwelling invertebrate Chironomus riparius larvae

“…On the other hand, acute toxicity tests have reported that fullerenes cause only minor or negligible effects to aquatic organisms (Tervonen et al, 2010;Pakarinen et al, 2011;Fraser et al, 2011;Petersen and Henry, 2012). There is a lack of conclusive data on chronic exposures; some evidence on benthic invertebrates has been reported (Waissi-Leinonen et al, 2012;Pakarinen et al, 2011;Oberholster et al, 2011) and even fewer studies of chronic toxicity to water flea D. magna (Tao et al, 2009). The question of the chronic toxicity of fullerenes to benthic invertebrates covering low concentration ranges has not been solved.…”

“…dw, particle size <0.5 mm) was added during each treatment just before starting the experiment. The amount of Urtica was chosen to correspond to our previous study; the food level was high enough to be sufficient for this bioassay (Ristola et al, 1999), but did not mark out the potential effect of the fullerenes (Waissi-Leinonen et al, 2012). The dry mass to wet mass ratio of the sediment was determined to be 0.56 to 0.62 and the total organic carbon content (TOC) was 4.51 ± 0.12 g/kg (Multi N/C 2100 Analytic Jena AG Germany).…”

“…Recent studies have indicated that fullerenesC 60 may have negative effects to organisms and other biological systems (Petersen and Henry, 2012;Waissi-Leinonen et al, 2012). For aquatic organisms this concern was raised by studies where negative influences were observed to have emerged as an outcome of ecotoxicological assays (Tervonen et al, 2010;Waissi-Leinonen et al, 2012;Pakarinen et al, 2011).…”

Analysis of Eisenia fetida earthworm responses to sub-lethal C60 nanoparticle exposure using 1H-NMR based metabolomics

“…Furthermore, the C 60 may also sorb other compounds and the presence of co-contaminants may also play a role in toxic responses (Henry et al, 2007). Recent reports have also highlighted the need for standardizing how C 60 exposure studies are carried out as the preparation of C 60 solutions as well as how the C 60 is spiked into sediment may also alter organism responses Waissi-Leinonem et al, 2012). However, due to the challenges of measuring C 60 in various environmental matrices, this aspect of C 60 exposure studies are still under development (Isaacson et al, 2009).…”

Toxicity of solid residues resulting from wastewater treatment with nanomaterials

“…Since C. riparius are sediment-dwelling and deposit-feeding organisms, they have a high probability of bioaccumulating high concentrations of contaminants through sediment ingestion (Oberholster et al, 2011), including contaminants like nanoparticles. Although in the last few years important reports have been released concerning the ecotoxicological effects of NMs to benthic fauna (Oberholster et al, 2011;Waissi-Leinonen et al, 2012;Nair et al, 2013;Bour et al, 2015), the knowledge is still scarce and the topic needs to be addressed further. However, to the best of our knowledge there is no report in the literature about the ecotoxicological effect of NMs bound to contaminants after the treatment of real hazardous organic and inorganic effluents to the C. riparius.…”