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Use of low density polyethylene membranes for assessment of genotoxicity of PAHs in the Seine River

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Abstract

The genotoxicity of river water dissolved contaminants is usually estimated after grab sampling of river water. Water contamination can now be obtained with passive samplers that allow a time-integrated sampling of contaminants. Since it was verified that low density polyethylene membranes (LDPE) accumulate labile hydrophobic compounds, their use was proposed as a passive sampler. This study was designed to test the applicability of passive sampling for combined chemical and genotoxicity measurements. The LDPE extracts were tested with the umu test (TA1535/pSK1002 ± S9) and the Ames assay (TA98, TA100 and YG1041 ± S9). We describe here this new protocol and its application in two field studies on four sites of the Seine River. Field LDPE extracts were negative with the YG1041 and TA100 and weakly positive with the TA98 + S9 and Umu test. Concentrations of labile mutagenic PAHs were higher upstream of Paris than downstream of Paris. Improvement of the method is needed to determine the genotoxicity of low concentrations of labile dissolved organic contaminants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Y. Oda (Japon) who gave the bacterial strain TA1535/pSK1002, Dr. B.N. Ames (Berkeley, CA, USA) who gave the bacterial strains TA98 and TA100 and Dr T. Nohmi (Tokyo, Japan) who gave the strain YG1041. We thank R. Louaileche and C. Varret for technical assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRSTEA, UR Hydrosystèmes et Bioprocédés, 1 rue Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, CS10030, 92761, Antony cedex, France

    Françoise Vincent-Hubert, Emmanuelle Uher, Cécile Michel & Catherine Gourlay-France

  2. Present address: IFREMER, Laboratoire de Microbiologie - LNR, rue de l’île d’Yeu, BP 21105, F 44311, Nantes, Cedex 03, France

    Françoise Vincent-Hubert

  3. Biogénotoxicologie et Mutagenèse Environnementales (EA 1784), Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France

    Carole Di Giorgio & Michel De Meo

Authors
  1. Françoise Vincent-Hubert
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  2. Emmanuelle Uher
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  3. Carole Di Giorgio
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  4. Cécile Michel
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  5. Michel De Meo
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  6. Catherine Gourlay-France
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Correspondence to Françoise Vincent-Hubert.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Cécile Michel had a Ph.D. Grant from the Ile-de-France Regional Council (R2DS program). This work was supported by the PIREN—Seine research program.

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Vincent-Hubert, F., Uher, E., Di Giorgio, C. et al. Use of low density polyethylene membranes for assessment of genotoxicity of PAHs in the Seine River. Ecotoxicology 26, 165–172 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-016-1751-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-016-1751-6

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