Cholinesterase characterization of two autochthonous species of Ria de Aveiro (Diopatra neapolitana and Solen marginatus) and comparison of sensitivities towards a series of common contaminants

Abstract

Biomonitoring of chemical contamination requires the use of well-established and validated tools, including biochemical markers that can be potentially affected by exposure to important environmental toxicants. Cholinesterases (ChEs) are present in a large number of species and have been successfully used for decades to discriminate the environmental presence of specific groups of pollutants. The success of cholinesterase inhibition has been due to their usefulness as a biomarker to address the presence of organophosphate (OP) and carbamate (CB) pesticides. However, its use in ecotoxicology has not been limited to such chemicals, and several other putative classes of contaminants have been implicated in cholinesterasic impairment. Nevertheless, the use of cholinesterases as a monitoring tool requires its full characterization in species to be used as test organisms. This study analyzed and differentiated the various cholinesterase forms present in two autochthonous organisms from the Ria de Aveiro (Portugal) area, namely the polychaete Diopatra neapolitana and the bivalve Solen marginatus, to be used in subsequent monitoring studies. In addition, this study also validated the putative use of the now characterized cholinesterasic forms by analyzing the in vitro effects of common anthropogenic contaminants, such as detergents, pesticides, and metals. The predominant cholinesterasic form found in tissues of D. neapolitana was acetylcholinesterase, while homogenates of S. marginatus were shown to possess an atypical cholinesterasic form, with a marked preference for propionylthiocholine. Cholinesterases from D. neapolitana were generally non-responsive towards the majority of the selected chemicals. On the contrary, strong inhibitory effects were reported for ChEs of S. marginatus following exposure to the selected pesticides.

Microbiota dysbiosis influences immune system and muscle pathophysiology of dystrophin‐deficient mice

“…Filtered sequences were denoised using the UNOISE algorithm implemented in micca I to determine true biological sequences at the single nucleotide resolution by generating ASVs. Bacterial ASVs were taxonomically classified using micca classify and the Ribosomal Database Project (RDP) Classifier v2.11 (Nunes & Resende, 2017). Multiple sequence alignment of 16S sequences was performed using the Nearest Alignment Space Termination (NAST) algorithm (Nunes et al , 2017c) implemented micca msa with the template alignment clustered at 97% similarity of the Greengenes database (Nunes et al , 2017d) (release 13_08).…”

Monthly physical activity and storage time affect enzyme acetylcholinesterase activity in Plasma and Whole blood samples of healthy elderly subjects

“…This study showed that the efficacy of inhibitor Eserine (0.1mM) and BW284c51 (0.01mM) remain the same before and after 3. months of physical activity and storage time. This finding is not following another study with inhibitor Eserine and BW284c51 [Nunes B, 2017].…”