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Assessment of Lemna minor (duckweed) and Corbicula fluminea (freshwater clam) as potential indicators of contaminated aquatic ecosystems: responses to presence of psychoactive drug mixtures

  • Aquatic organisms and biological responses to assess water contamination and ecotoxicity
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A Correction to this article was published on 21 April 2018

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Abstract

The pharmaceutical products are emerging pollutants continuously released into the environment, because they cannot be effectively removed by the wastewater treatment plants. In recent years, questions have been raised concerning the environmental risks related to these pollutants. The goal of this research was to evaluate the responses in Lemna minor after 7 days and in Corbicula fluminea after differing durations (1, 3, 7, and 19 days) of exposure to the psychoactive drug mixture (valproic acid, citalopram, carbamazepine, cyamemazine, hydroxyzine, oxazepam, norfluoxetine, lorazepam, fluoxetine, and sertraline) in different concentrations (0, 0 + ethanol, drug concentration (DC) 1 = river water concentration, DC2 = effluent concentration, and DC3 = 10× effluent concentration). In this aim, growth parameters of L. minor, gluthathione S-transferase (GSTs), catalase (CAT), ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) and/or gene expressions (pi-gst, cat, cytochrome P450 4 (cyp4), multidrug resistant 1 (mdr1), and superoxide dismutase (sod)) were measured. GST activities increased significantly in L. minor exposed to DC3, but no changes were found in CAT activity. In C. fluminea, EROD activity was induced significantly in both gill and digestive gland tissues after 3 days’ exposure to DC3, while a GST increase was observed only in digestive gland tissues, suggesting that these pharmaceuticals induced an oxidative effect. Gene expression analysis revealed transient transcriptomic responses of cyp4, sod, and mdr1 under drug concentrations 2 or 3 and no change of expression for the other genes (cat and pi-gst) or condition (environmental drug concentration) tested. Finally, the data reported in this study represent important ecotoxicological information, confirming that this enzyme family (cyp4, sod, and mdr1) may be considered as a sensible and early indicator of exposure to drugs and emphasizing the involvement of selected genes in detoxification pathways.

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  • 21 April 2018

    The correct presentation of the Author names are shown in this paper.

Notes

  1. The standard unit (SU) corresponds to the smallest common dose of a medicine, for all dosage forms (for example, one pill, one tablet, one dose-measuring spoon, etc.) (BIO Intelligence Service 2013).

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Midi-Pyrénées Region (France) and ANSES (Psycheau project). We are grateful to the Aquitaine Region (France) for its financial support in the purchase of instruments. We wish to thank Frederic Martins and Jean-José Maoret (Get-TQ, Toulouse, France) for their advice on the QPCR experiments. We thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments have helped to greatly improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Biochimie et Toxicologie des substances bioactives (BTSB), Université de Toulouse, INU Champollion, Albi, France

    Mohamed Bourioug, Jean-Yves Mazzitelli, Pierre Marty, Elsa Bonnafé & Florence Geret

  2. Department of Agronomy, National School of Agriculture, km. 10, Route Haj Kaddour, B.P. S/40, 50001, Meknès, Morocco

    Mohamed Bourioug

  3. UMR 5805 Environnements et Paléoenvironnements Océaniques et Continentaux (EPOC), Université de Bordeaux, Talence, France

    Hélène Budzinski

  4. Laboratoire Chrono-Environnement, UMR CNRS 6249, Université Franche-Comté, 25030, Besançon, France

    Lotfi Aleya

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  1. Mohamed Bourioug
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  2. Jean-Yves Mazzitelli
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  3. Pierre Marty
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  4. Hélène Budzinski
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  5. Lotfi Aleya
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  6. Elsa Bonnafé
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  7. Florence Geret
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Correspondence to Lotfi Aleya.

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Responsible editor: Cinta Porte

The correct presentation of the Author names are shown in this paper.

The original version of this article was revised.

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Bourioug, M., Mazzitelli, JY., Marty, P. et al. Assessment of Lemna minor (duckweed) and Corbicula fluminea (freshwater clam) as potential indicators of contaminated aquatic ecosystems: responses to presence of psychoactive drug mixtures. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 11192–11204 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-8447-1

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