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Pristine graphene and graphene oxide induce multi-organ defects in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae/juvenile: an in vivo study

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Abstract

Graphene-based nanomaterials (GBNs) have been widely used in various fields nowadays. However, they are reported to be highly toxic to some aquatic organisms. However, the multi-organ toxicity caused by pristine graphene (pG) and graphene oxide (GO) to the developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae or juvenile and the underlying mechanisms is not fully known. Therefore, in the present study, the effect of pG and GO with environmental concentrations (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 μg/L of pG; 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 mg/mL of GO) on multi-organ system in developing zebrafish larvae was experimentally assessed. The pG and GO were found to accumulate in the brain tissue that also caused significant changes in the heart beat and survival rate. The sizes of hepatocytes were reduced. Altered axonal integrity, affecting axon length and pattern in “Tg(mbp:eGFP) transgenic lines” was also observed. In addition, the results indicated pathological effects in major organs and with disrupted mitochondrial structure was quite obvious. The pG and GO bioaccumulation leads to multi organ toxicity in zebrafish larvae. In future, the existence of the current study can be extrapolated to other aquatic system in general and in particularly to humans.

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The obtained and analyzed data of this study are included in this article and available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by the Korea Research Fellowship (Brain Pool Program) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (grant no. 2016H1D3A1938252).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Biofluid and Biomimic Research, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, 37673, South Korea

    Bangeppagari Manjunatha & Sang Joon Lee

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, 37673, South Korea

    Eunseok Seo, Sung Ho Park & Sang Joon Lee

  3. Glorious Exotica Lab, Pune, India

    Rajesh R. Kundapur

Authors
  1. Bangeppagari Manjunatha
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  2. Eunseok Seo
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  3. Sung Ho Park
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  4. Rajesh R. Kundapur
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  5. Sang Joon Lee
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Contributions

Bangeppagari Manjunatha: investigation, visualization, conceptualization, data curation, methodology, validation, formal analysis, writing - original draft, writing - review and editing, funding acquisition. Eunseok Seo: TEM analysis. Sung Ho Park: zebrafish sources. Rajesh R. Kundapur: formal analysis. Sang Joon Lee: project administration, writing – review and editing, funding acquisition. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Sang Joon Lee.

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All experiments using zebrafish were performed according to the animal protocol approved by the Animal Care and Ethics Committee from POSTECH (POSTECH-2019-0059), South Korea.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Manjunatha, B., Seo, E., Park, S.H. et al. Pristine graphene and graphene oxide induce multi-organ defects in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae/juvenile: an in vivo study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 34664–34675 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13058-7

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