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Human cell death in relation to DNA damage after exposure to the untreated and biologically treated pharmaceutical wastewater

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Abstract

Among all the pharmaceutical drugs that contaminate the environment, antibiotics occupy an important place due to their high consumption rates in both veterinary and human medicine. The present study examined the ability of Pseudomonas putida to grow on the antibiotic wastewater, currently expanding in Tunisia, containing amoxicillin and cefadroxil. P. putida was very efficient to grow quickly in pharmaceutical wastewater (PW) and in reducing the total dissolved solids to 80.1 %. Cytotoxicity of PW, before and after biodegradation with P. putida mt-2, was evaluated in vitro, using the MTT assay, against four human tumor cell lines such as A549 (lung cell carcinoma), HCT15 (colon cell carcinoma), MCF7 (breast adenocarcinoma), and U373 (glioma cell carcinoma). The PW reduced all human cell lines viability in a dose-dependent manner. This activity was very remarkable against U373 cell line. For this reason, we have tested the genotoxicity of PW using comet assay for quantification of DNA fragmentation. In fact, PW has statistically significant (p < 0.001) influence on DNA. Indeed, the percentage of genotoxicity was 66.87 and 87.5 %, after 24 and 48 h of treatment, respectively. However, cytotoxicity and genotoxicity decreased strongly when tested the PW obtained after incubation with P. putida mt-2. Our results indicate that P. putida is a promising and improved alternative to treating industrial-scale effluent compared to current chemical treatment procedures used by the industrials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unité de Recherche Pharmacognosie Biologie Moléculaire Faculté de Pharmacie de Monastir Dentaire Rue Avicenne, 5000, Monastir, Tunisia

    Mounira Krifa, Ines Bouhlel & Leila Chekir-Ghedira

  2. Laboratoire de Biotechnologie et Valorisation de Bio Géo Ressources Institut Supérieur de Biotechnologie, Université de la Manouba BioTechPole Sidi Thabet, 2020, Ariana, Tunisia

    Mounira Krifa, Afef Dellai, Ameur Cherif & Hedi Ben Mansour

  3. Laboratoire de Pharmacologie des Médicaments Anticancéreux, Université Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2, Institut Bergonie, 229 cours de l’Argonne, 33076, Bordeaux Cedex, France

    Afef Dellai & Jacque Robert

  4. Laboratoire des Aliments Bioprocédés, Toxicologie, Environnements (ABTE-EA 4651) IUT de Caen Université de Caen Basse-Normandie Campus 2 Boulevard Maréchal Juin, 14032, Caen Cedex, France

    Daniel Barillier, Ridha Mosrati & Hedi Ben Mansour

Authors
  1. Mounira Krifa
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  2. Afef Dellai
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  3. Ines Bouhlel
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  4. Jacque Robert
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  5. Ameur Cherif
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  6. Daniel Barillier
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  7. Ridha Mosrati
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  8. Leila Chekir-Ghedira
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  9. Hedi Ben Mansour
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Correspondence to Hedi Ben Mansour.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Mounira Krifa and Afef Dellai have contributed equally to this work.

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Krifa, M., Dellai, A., Bouhlel, I. et al. Human cell death in relation to DNA damage after exposure to the untreated and biologically treated pharmaceutical wastewater. Environ Sci Pollut Res 20, 3836–3842 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-1322-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-012-1322-1

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