Abstract
Chromium is a significant mutagen and carcinogen in environment. We compared the effects of tri- and hexavalent chromium on cytotoxicity and oxidative stress in yeast. Cell growth was inhibited by Cr3+ or Cr6+, and Cr6+ significantly increased the lethal rate compared with Cr3+. Both Cr3+ and Cr6+ can enter into the yeast cells. The percent of propidium iodide permeable cells treated with Cr3+ is almost five times as that treated with the same concentration of Cr6+. Levels of TBARS, O2 −, and carbonyl protein were significantly increased in both Cr6+- and Cr3+-treated cells in a concentration- and time-dependent manner. Moreover, the accumulation of these stress markers in Cr6+-treated cells was over the Cr3+-treated ones. The decreased GSH level and increased activity of GPx were observed after 300 μM Cr6+-exposure compared with the untreated control, whereas there was no other change of GSH content in cells treated with Cr3+ even at very high concentration. Exposure to both Cr3+ and Cr6+ resulted in the decrease of activities of SOD and catalase. Furthermore, the effect of Cr6+ is stronger than that of Cr3+. Null mutation sensitivity assay demonstrated that the gsh1 mutant was sensitive to Cr6+ other than Cr3+, the apn1 mutant is more sensitive to Cr6+ than Cr3+, and the rad1 mutant is sensitive to both Cr6+ and Cr3+. Therefore, Cr3+ can be concluded to inhibit cell growth probably due to the damage of plasma membrane integrality in yeast. Although both tri- and hexavalent chromium can induce cytotoxicity and oxidative stress, the action mode of Cr3+ is different from that of Cr6+, and serious membrane damage caused by Cr3+ is not the direct consequence of the increase of lipid peroxidation.
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Acknowledgments
This study was sponsored by Grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31100549), the Shanghai Pujiang Programs (10PJ1402300 & 11PJ1400100), the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (11ZZ51), the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, the State Education Ministry, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2011D10512, WF1114020 & 222201313010).
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Huang, Z., Kuang, X., Chen, Z. et al. Comparative Studies of Tri- and Hexavalent Chromium Cytotoxicity and Their Effects on Oxidative State of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cells. Curr Microbiol 68, 448–456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-013-0496-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-013-0496-1