Abstract
Baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is the simplest and most well-known representative of eukaryotic cells and thus a convenient model organism for evaluating toxic effects in human cells and tissues. Yeast cell sensors are easy to maintain with short generation times, which makes the analytical method of assessing antifungal toxicity cheap and less-time consuming. In this work, the toxicity of test compounds was assessed in bioassays based on bioluminescence inhibition and on traditional growth inhibition on agar plates. The model organism in both tests was a modified S. cerevisiae sensor strain that produces light when provided with D-luciferin in an insect luciferase reporter gene activity assay. The bioluminescence assay showed toxic effects for yeast cell sensor of 5,6-benzo-flavone, rapamycin, nystatin and cycloheximide at concentrations of nM to μM. In addition, arsenic compounds, cadmium chloride, copper sulfate and lead acetate were shown to be potent non-specific inhibitors of the reporter organism described here. The results from a yeast agar diffusion assay correlated with the bioluminescence assay results.
Highlights
Since the amount of toxic chemicals present in our daily lives is huge and increasing, a sensitive, rapid, robust and cheap toxicity assay is needed for acute toxicity assessment in eukaryotic cells
We estimated the toxicity of selected chemicals by exposing genetically modified yeast cells and measuring the luminescence produced in the presence of D-luciferin
For this reason 5,6-benzoflavone is widely used for studies in toxic effects in mammals mediated by aryl hydrocarbon receptor [30]
Summary
Since the amount of toxic chemicals present in our daily lives is huge and increasing, a sensitive, rapid, robust and cheap toxicity assay is needed for acute toxicity assessment in eukaryotic cells. Since that time the methods and several models including insect [2], fish [3], Daphnia magna [4] and tumor cell lines [5] have been generated for assessing toxicity of molecules to eukaryotic cells and tissues. None of these alone can answer the demands for a general model which is sensitive, economic and good in predicting the effects of toxic compounds against humans. Model organisms of different species typically have different sensitivities, which means that each biological test differs more or less from others and may not give universal results when assessing toxicity [6]
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