Effects of N,N-dimethylformamide on behaviour and regeneration of planarian Dugesia japonica

Abstract

In this study, the toxicity, behavioural and regeneration effects of dimethylformamide (DMF) on planarian Dugesia japonica were investigated. One control and six different concentrations of DMF (10 ppm, 100 ppm, 500 ppm, 1000 ppm, 5000 ppm and 10,000 ppm) were used in triplicate. The results showed that the mortality was directly proportional to the DMF concentration and planarian locomotor velocity (pLMV) was significantly reduced by increasing the exposure time and DMF concentration. pLMV of D. japonica was significantly reduced at a lower concentration of 10 ppm after 7 days of continuous exposure to DMF. The recovery of the motility of planarians pretreated with DMF was found to be time- and dose dependent, all planarians had complete recovery in their motility after 48 h. The appearance of auricles in regenerating animals was easily affected by DMF exposure in comparison with the appearance of eyespot. The present results suggest that the intact adult mobility in the aquatic planarian D. japonica is a more sensitive biomarker than mortality, and the appearance of auricles in regenerating animals is a more sensitive biomarker than eyespot.

Planarian brain regeneration as a model system for developmental neurotoxicology

“…() and since used by a large number of research laboratories (Alonso & Camargo ; Zhang et al. ; Ramakrishnan et al. ; Lowe et al.…”

“…), N , N ‐dimethlyformamide (DMF) (Zhang et al. ) and organophosphate pesticides (Villar et al. ; Hagstrom et al.…”

“…Comparison of different morphological endpoints provides increased sensitivity as certain chemicals may affect the regeneration of one structure but not the other, as evidenced by the effect of DMF on auricle but not eye regeneration (Zhang et al. ). Auricles, however, are not equally striking in all planarian species, with Dugesia dorotocephala and Dugesia tigrina being the most apparent and S. mediterranea the least (Carter et al.…”

“…2012b; Zhang et al. ), the interaction of two chemicals (DMSO + toxicant [Stevens et al. ], caffeine + guarana [Moustakas et al.…”

“…; Zhang et al. ; Hagstrom et al. ) and different species may have different susceptibilities and behavioral responses (Rivera & Perich ).…”