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Microalga Euglena as a bioindicator for testing genotoxic potentials of organic pollutants in Taihu Lake, China

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Abstract

The microalga Euglena was selected as a bioindicator for determining genotoxicity potencies of organic pollutants in Meiliang Bay of Taihu Lake, Jiangsu, China among seasons in 2008. Several methods, including the comet assay to determine breaks in DNA and quantification of antioxidant enzymes were applied to characterize genotoxic effects of organic extracts of water from Taihu Lake on the flagellated, microalga Euglena gracilis. Contents of photosynthetic pigments, including Chl a, Chl b and carotenoid pigments were inversely proportion to concentrations of organic extracts to which E. gracilis was exposed. Organic extracts of Taihu Lake water also affected activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) of E. gracilis. There were no statistically significant differences in SOD activities among seasons except in June but significant differences in POD activities were observed among all seasons. The metrics of DNA fragmentation in the alkaline unwinding assay (Comet assay), olive tail moment (OTM) and tail moment (TM), used as measurement endpoints during the genotoxicity assay were both greater when E. gracilis was exposed to organic of water collected from Taihu Lake among four seasons. It is indicated that the comet assay was useful for determining effects of constituents of organic extracts of water on E. gracilis and this assay was effective as an early warning to organic pollutants.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Major Project of Science & Technology Ministry of China (2012ZX07501-003), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No. 2008CB418003), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21077052, 31072217) and Science and Technology Support Program of Jiangsu Province (BE2012737). The authors wish to acknowledge the support of an instrumentation grant from the Canada Foundation for Infrastructure. Prof. Giesy was supported by the program of 2012 “High Level Foreign Experts” (#GDW20123200120) funded by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, the P.R. China to Nanjing University and the Einstein Professor Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was also supported by the Canada Research Chair program, a Visiting Distinguished Professorship in the Department of Biology and Chemistry and State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Xianlin Campus, 163 Xianlin Avenue, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Mei Li, Xiangyu Gao, Bing Wu, Xin Qian, John P. Giesy & Yibin Cui

  2. Department of Biomedical Veterinary Biosciences and Toxicology Centre, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, S7N 5B3, Canada

    John P. Giesy

  3. Zoology Department, Center for Integrative Toxicology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    John P. Giesy

  4. Department of Biology and Chemistry, and State Key Laboratory in Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

    John P. Giesy

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  1. Mei Li
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  2. Xiangyu Gao
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Correspondence to Mei Li.

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Li, M., Gao, X., Wu, B. et al. Microalga Euglena as a bioindicator for testing genotoxic potentials of organic pollutants in Taihu Lake, China. Ecotoxicology 23, 633–640 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-014-1214-x

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