Pollutant Responses In Marine Organisms Research Articles

Combined effects of environmental stressor in the aquatic environment

A large variety of traditional contaminants including metals, hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons and pesticides, and emerging compounds (pharmaceuticals, personal care products, plastics, and nanoparticles) are generally found in the marine environment. These compounds are of special concern due to their intensive use and threats they can cause to the aquatic environment and human health. Moreover, climate change can also have an additional impact on the effects of these compounds. Due to the complex nature of these stressors, a great deal of research has been carried out to develop the best analytical technologies for the detection of these compounds in the aquatic environment and for assessing their biological effects. This special issue is a collection of key articles addressing field and analytical aspects of multiple stressors in the aquatic environment presented to the 17th meeting on pollution Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO17) held at the University of Algarve (Portugal) from the fifth to the eighth of April 2013. This International Symposium series, Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO) began in 1981 with a small group of NSF-funded researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and from Plymouth Marine Laboratory who were addressing questions related to Chemical Effects and the Health of the Ocean. The first PRIMO Symposium was held in Plymouth, UK, in 1981 and addressed the mechanistic aspects of the same topic with the goal of stimulating international scientific interactions in this area. The success of the first PRIMO meeting led to biennial meetings held alternately in Europe, the USA, and South America. PRIMO meetings have been held in 13 cities of 8 countries: the UK (Plymouth 1981, 1985, 1989, 2001), the USA (Woods Hole, MA 1983, 1987, 1991; Asilomar Monterey, CA 1995; Williamsburg, VA 1999; Tampa, FL 2003 and Long Beach, CA, 2011), Sweden (Goteborg, 1993), Norway (Bergen, 1997), Italy (Alessandria, 2005), Brazil (Florianopolis, 2007), and France (Bordeaux, 2009). Although the word “marine” was used to produce the memorable acronym, the research presented has never distinguished between marine and freshwater, and always included research results from marine and freshwater organisms. The overall theme of PRIMO17 was dedicated to the impacts of large scale problems such as Ocean and Human Health, global climate change, ocean acidification, effects of multiple stressors from emerging contaminants to nanoscale materials, and mechanistic effects of toxicity from ecosystem scale to the exposome (www.cima.ualg.pt/ primo17). The meeting was characterized by the following major scientific themes: climate change; ocean acidification; emerging compounds (nanomaterials, pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PPCPS)); combination effects of multiple stressors; detection and monitoring of deliberately dumped chemicals at sea; endocrine disruption; cellular absorption, distribution, metabolism, and elimination; tissue levels and immune responses; biomarkers; Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Heavy metals: Mechanisms of detoxification and mechanisms of toxicity

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Heavy metals: Mechanisms of detoxification and mechanisms of toxicity

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Organic Xenobiotics: Mechanisms of detoxification and mechanisms of toxicity

Regulatory-approved toxicity assays such as the OECD Fish Embryo Toxicity Assay (TG236) allow correlation of chemical exposure to adverse morphological phenotypes. However, these assays are ineffective in assessing sub-lethal (i.e. low-dose) effects, or differentiating between similar phenotypes induced by different chemicals. Inclusion of multi-omic analyses in studies investigating xenobiotic action provides improved characterization of biological response, thereby enhancing prediction of toxicological outcomes in whole animals in the absence of morphological effects. In the current study, we assessed perturbations in both the metabolome and transcriptome of zebrafish (Danio rerio; ZF) larvae exposed from 96 to 120 h post fertilization to environmental concentrations of acetaminophen (APAP), diphenhydramine (DH), carbamazepine (CBZ), and fluoxetine (FLX); common pharmaceuticals with known mechanisms of action. Multi-omic responses were evaluated independently and integrated to identify molecular interactions and biological relevance of the responses. Results indicated chemical- and dose-specific changes suggesting differences in the time scale of transcript abundance and metabolite production. Increased impact on the metabolome relative to the transcriptome in FLX-treated animals suggests a stronger post-translational effect of the treatment. In contrast, the transcriptome showed higher sensitivity to perturbation in DH-exposed animals. Integration of ‘omic’ responses using multivariate approaches provided additional insights not obtained by independent ‘omic’ analyses and demonstrated that the most distinct overall response profiles were induced following low-dose exposure for all 4 pharmaceuticals. Importantly, changes in transcript abundance corroborated with predictions from metabolomic enrichment analyses and the identified perturbed biological pathways aligned with known xenobiotic mechanisms of action. This work demonstrates that a multi-omic toxicological approach, coupled with a sensitive animal model such as ZF larvae, can help characterize the toxicological relevance of acute low-dose chemical exposures.

Abstracts from 14th international symposium on pollutant responses in marine organisms (PRIMO 14) – Pollutant effects on reproduction and development

Abstracts from 14th international symposium on pollutant responses in marine organisms (PRIMO 14) – Pollutant effects on reproduction and development

Abstracts from fourteenth international symposium on pollutant responses in marine organisms (PRIMO 14) – immunological effects of pollutants

Abstracts from fourteenth international symposium on pollutant responses in marine organisms (PRIMO 14) – immunological effects of pollutants

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Receptors and cell signaling disruption

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Receptors and cell signaling disruption

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Biological Modeling and Synthesis at the molecular, cellular and organismic level in the evaluation of pollutant effects

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Biological Modeling and Synthesis at the molecular, cellular and organismic level in the evaluation of pollutant effects

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Oil effects

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Oil effects

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Biomarkers of pollutants at the molecular, cellular, histological and organismic level

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Biomarkers of pollutants at the molecular, cellular, histological and organismic level

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Endocrine disruption

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) - Endocrine disruption

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Transporters and multixenobiotic resistance

Abstracts from Fourteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 14) – Transporters and multixenobiotic resistance

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Environmental Genomics and Proteomics

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Environmental Genomics and Proteomics

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) - Biomarkers of pollution: Molecular, cellular, histopathological, immunological and organism responses

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) - Biomarkers of pollution: Molecular, cellular, histopathological, immunological and organism responses

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Endocrine disruption

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Endocrine disruption

Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13): Alessandria, Italy 19–23 June, 2005

Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13): Alessandria, Italy 19–23 June, 2005

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Oxidative stress and cell signalling disruption

Protein carbonyl's and tbars as biomarkers for oxidative damage in eelpout (Zoacers vivaparus)

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Biological modelling and synthesis at the molecular, cellular and organism level in the evaluation of pollutant effects

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Biological modelling and synthesis at the molecular, cellular and organism level in the evaluation of pollutant effects

Redox proteomics in the mussel, Mytilus edulis

Pollutants (e.g. PAHs, metals) cause oxidative stress (OS) by forming reactive oxygen species. Redox proteomics provides a means for identifying protein-specific OS effects in Mytilus edulis. Groups of mussels were sampled from a clean site in Cork Harbour, Ireland and exposed to 1 mM H2O2 in holding tanks. Protein extracts of gill and digestive gland were separated by two dimensional electrophoresis and similar protein expression profiles were found. Effects of OS on disulphide bridge patterns were investigated in diagonal gels by separating proteins in non-reducing conditions followed by a second reducing dimension. Immunoprecipitation selected carbonylated and glutathionylated proteins. These methodologies can contribute to redox proteomic studies of pollutant responses in marine organisms.

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Heavy metals: Mechanisms of detoxification and mechanisms of toxicity

Effects of copper and cadmium on protein expression in Baltic sea blue mussels (Mytilus edulis sp.)

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Pollutant Effects on Reproduction and Development

Abstracts from Thirteenth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms (PRIMO 13) – Pollutant Effects on Reproduction and Development