Damp building-related illnesses have caused concern for years in many countries. Although the problem is extensive, the knowledge of the immunological reactions behind damp building-related illnesses is still quite limited. Trichothecene mycotoxins form one major group of toxins, which possibly contribute to the illnesses. Stachybotrys chartarum is a well-known, but also controversial damp building mold and many strains of this mold are capable of producing trichothecenes. In this report, we have examined the effect of S. chartarum and trichothecene mycotoxins on the proinflammatory cytokine response in human macrophages. As a result, satratoxin-positive S. chartarum activated inflammasome-associated caspase-1, which is needed for proteolytic processing of IL-1β and IL-18. Furthermore, purified trichothecene mycotoxins, roridin A, verrucarin A, and T-2 toxin activated caspase-1, and these mycotoxins also strongly enhanced LPS-dependent secretion of IL-1β and IL-18. The satratoxin-positive strain of S. chartarum and the trichothecenes also triggered the activation of caspase-3, which is an effector caspase of apoptosis. Satratoxin-negative S. chartarum was not able to activate either caspase-1 or caspase-3. In conclusion, our results indicate that human macrophages sense trichothecene mycotoxins as a danger signal, which activates caspase-1, and further enables the secretion of IL-1β and IL-18 from the LPS-primed cells.
This study examined the efficiency of cotton grass fibers in removing diesel oil from the surface of water in conditions prevailing in the Baltic Sea. The effect of low temperature, salinity, and bacterial amendments were tested in laboratory-scale set-ups, whereas 600-L mesocosms filled with Baltic Sea water were used for testing the effects of diesel oil and rapid removal of the oil on microorganisms, phytoplankton, and mussels. Cotton grass proved to be an excellent sorbent for diesel oil from the water surface at a low temperature. Inoculation with diesel-enriched microorganisms enhanced degradation of oil significantly in laboratory-scale experiments. In mesocosm experiments, the addition of diesel oil (0.66 mg L(-1), 0.533 L m(-2)) to the basins resulted in higher microbial density than in all other basins, including inoculated ones, suggesting that the Baltic Sea contains indigenous hydrocarbon degraders. The removal of oil with cotton grass significantly improved the survival of mussels in the mesocosm tests: 100% mortality in diesel basins versus 0% mortality in basins with cotton grass, respectively. However, the surviving mussels suffered from histopathological changes such as inflammatory responses, degenerations, and cell death. The observed rescuing effect was observable even when the cotton grass-bound oil was left in the water. The results underline the importance of rapid action in limiting damage caused by oil spills.
We have studied the use of cotton grass, a costless side product of peat excavation, as a sorbent of surface oil slicks in a brackish water environment. Two major experiments were run in 2005, where untreated water from the Gulf of Finland (including plankton organisms) was transported into eight large experiment tanks (400 liters each) and diesel oil, cotton grass, oil-degrading bacteria and nutrients, as well as blue (Mytilus spp.) and zebra (Dreissena sp.) mussels were added in different combinations. We studied the effect of diesel oil on phyto-and zooplankton, mussels, and the applicability of the use of cotton grass for eliminating the detrimental effects of oil on test organisms. The applicability of our results are within oil combating: the more we know about which, how, and in what concentrations key species in the Gulf of Finland ecosystem respond to oil, the better we can design and focus oil combating activities to the most ecologically vulnerable areas.In this paper we will introduce the experiment set-up, measured factors and the first results of our experiments.
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