Application of molecular markers to detect DNA damage caused by environmental pollutants in lichen species

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Pseudevernia furfuracea L. (Zopf), Peltigera praetextata (Flörke ex Sommerf.) Zopf, Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm., and Usnea longissima Ach. lichen species were used as bioindicators to assess the genotoxicity of air pollutants. In the present study, we examined significant environmetal pollutants and investigate how changes may lead to damage in DNA structure using RAPD markers. In the study area (Erzurum, Turkey), poor-quality lignite, which generates a large amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particle matter, is used for domestic heating, and vehicles also contribute to air pollution. Control lichen samples were collected far from large urban and industrial settlements and transplanted to four polluted sites for 4, 8, or 12 months. The total soluble protein content of the examined four lichen species did not significantly change with exposure time (P < 0.05). The four lichen samples exposed to the pollutants for 8 months had the highest ratio of DNA changes. The ratio of band differences (2015) in P. praetextata was higher than that in the other three lichen species, possibly because it has broad leaves that accumulated more pollutants. The average incidences of polymorphism were 64.14, 54.58, 65.76, and 43.06% for P. furfuracea, P. praetextata, L. pulmonaria, and U. longissima, respectively. The genomic template stability (GTS) significantly decreased following exposure to pollutants. GTS ratios revealed that the highest value (98.36%) belonged to U. longissima samples from Site 1 (10 m) after 4 months of exposure, and the lowest values belonged to P. praetextata (73.58%) from Site 3 (100 m) after 8 months of exposure. Based on our findings, we recommend the use of P. praetextata as an indicator of genotoxicity.

TheSticta filixmorphodeme (Ascomycota:Lobariaceae) in New Zealand with the newly recognized speciesS. dendroidesandS. menziesii: indicators of forest health in a threatened island biota?

“…New Zealand has a very rich assembly of Lobariaceae macrolichens, a family that has been identified as containing potentially excellent bioindicators of forest health (Rose 1974(Rose , 1976(Rose , 1992Galloway 1985Galloway , 1988Galloway , 1992Galloway , 2007Galloway , 2009Søchting & Christensen 1989;Gauslaa 1994;Selva 1994Selva , 1996Wolseley et al 1994;McCune 2000;Zedda 2002;Campbell & Fredeen 2004;Kalwij et al 2005;Jüriado & Liira 2009;Scheidegger 2009;Nascimbene et al 2010;Gustafsson et al 2013;Simijaca-Salcedo et al 2014;Cansaran-Duman et al 2015;Giorgio et al 2015;Ramírez-Morán et al 2016). However, despite the fact that New Zealand is currently regarded as the best studied area when it comes to the taxonomy of Lobariaceae (Galloway 2009), our results show that species delimitations are far from settled, which has implications for our understanding of species-level ecology.…”

“…Lichens have long been used as bioindicators and species in Lobariaceae are excellent indicators of forest health (Rose 1974(Rose , 1976(Rose , 1992Selva 1994Selva , 1996Zedda 2002). A prime example is Lobaria pulmonaria (L.) Hoffm., which has been extensively studied in this respect in Europe and North America (Søchting & Christensen 1989;Gauslaa 1994;McCune 2000;Campbell & Fredeen 2004;Kalwij et al 2005;Jüriado & Liira 2009;Scheidegger 2009;Nascimbene et al 2010;Gustafsson et al 2013;Cansaran-Duman et al 2015;Giorgio et al 2015). Other Lobariaceae considered rare and threatened by land use change in the Northern Hemisphere, including Sticta fuliginosa (Dicks.)…”

Detection of protein and DNA damage induced by elevated carbon dioxide and ozone in Triticum aestivum L. using biomarker and comet assay

“…Conversely, the disappearance of some bands (non-unique) and loss of band intensity may be induced by genomic rearrangements, decreased point mutation, DNA damage in primer binding sites, or the interaction of DNA polymerase with damaged DNA, as suggested by Cansaran-Duman et al (2015). In addition, the loss of DNA bands may be related to DNA damage (e.g., single-and double-strand breaks, modified bases, basic sites, oxidized bases, bulky adduct, and DNA-protein cross-links), and/or complex chromosomal rearrangements (Atienzar and Jha, 2006).…”

“…The presence and absence of bands indicated a clear ability of CO 2 and O 3 stress to induce gene mutation, DNA damage, or alter base sequences of DNA during its replication in tested wheat plant cells. The appearance of new DNA bands (unique) may be due to the fact that some oligonucleotide priming sites become available to primers as a result of structural changes in the DNA sequence due to point mutations, breaks, transpositions, large deletions or additions, and/or homologous recombination, as suggested by Atienzar and Jha (2006) and Cansaran-Duman et al (2015).…”

“…This technique can detect nucleotide sequence polymorphisms that are randomly distributed throughout the genome, in both coding and noncoding regions (Atienzar and Jha, 2006). In addition, differences in RAPD profiles have been used to detect genetic variation and to evaluate the genotoxicity of environmental pollutants (Gjorgieva et al, 2012;Cansaran-Duman et al, 2015).…”