Abstract
Environmental contamination by nanoparticles (NPs) and drugs represents one of the most debated issues of the last years. The aquatic biome and, indirectly, human health are strongly influenced by the negative effects induced by the widespread presence of pharmaceutical products in wastewater, mainly due to the massive use of antibiotics and inefficient treatment of the waters. The present study aimed to evaluate the harmful consequences due to exposure to antibiotics and NPs, alone and in combination, in the aquatic environment. By exploiting some of their peculiar characteristics, such as small size and ability to bind different types of substances, NPs can carry drugs into the body, showing potential genotoxic effects. The research was conducted on zebrafish (Danio rerio) exposed in vivo to lincomycin (100 mg/L) and titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) (10 µg/L) for 7 and 14 exposure days. The effects on zebrafish were evaluated in terms of cell viability, DNA fragmentation, and genomic template stability (GTS%) investigated using Trypan blue staining, TUNEL assay, and the random amplification of polymorphic DNA PCR (RAPD PCR) technique, respectively. Our results show that after TiO2 NPs exposure, as well as after TiO2 NPs and lincomycin co-exposure, the percentage of damaged DNA significantly increased and cell viability decreased. On the contrary, exposure to lincomycin alone caused only a GTS% reduction after 14 exposure days. Therefore, the results allow us to assert that genotoxic effect in target cells could be through a synergistic effect, also potentially mediated by the establishment of intermolecular interactions between lincomycin and TiO2 NPs.
Highlights
Over the last 20 years, pharmaceuticals have been the most investigated pollutants [1]
Lincomycin and TiO2 NPs in the exposed organisms were indirectly assessed by estimating the lincomycin and nanoparticle content in the tank water
In order to finely quantize the antibiotic and TiO2 NPs content in the water, HPLC DAD analysis was carried out; based on the acquired lincomycin calibration curve (y = 5.2582x + 42.55; R2 = 0.9971), it was found that the water contained 98.8 mg/L of lincosamides and 8.2 μg/L of TiO2 NPs
Summary
Over the last 20 years, pharmaceuticals have been the most investigated pollutants [1]. Lincomycin is an antibiotic belonging to the class of lincosamides, and it has been frequently used in human and veterinary medicine as a bacteriostatic and protein synthesis inhibitor in anaerobic bacteria [2]. It is a drug soluble in water and is chemically stable both in the dry state and in solution. Its metabolism is not well-defined, though the primary product recovered in humans after administration is unchanged lincomycin [3]. As it is widely used in the treatment of respiratory tract infections and in the treatment of toxoplasmosis and pneumocystis in patients with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) [4], concerns, for both aquatic organisms and humans, have been raised about its disposal and its persistence in the environment
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