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Effect of eight common Brazilian drugs on Lemna minor and Salvinia auriculata growth

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Abstract

The growth of two species of macrophytes (Lemna minor and Salvinia auriculata) under the effect of a mixture of amoxicillin, caffeine, carbamazepine, dipyrone, ibuprofen, losartan, omeprazole, and tenivastatin was investigated by bioassay. Three concentration levels were utilized in this study (10, 200, and 500 μg L−1) using a growth inhibition test based on the OECD 221/2006 guidelines. The frond number, total area, and chlorophyll a level were selected as suitable end points. For L. minor, at all concentrations, a significant difference in the total frond number was observed and the growth inhibition varied from 30 to 70% at the low and high concentrations, respectively. No significant growth change was observed to S. auriculata exposed to the mixture of drugs. Thus, individual drug tests were performed for L. minor which demonstrated stimulation in growth, when exposed to most drugs individually, except tenivastatin which was identified as the drug responsible for the significant growth inhibition seen in the mixture. The L. minor enhanced growth was probably caused by N molecule transformation to ammonium and nitrate, essential nutrients for plants.

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Data Availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article. The raw data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank our colleagues from Glasgow Caledonian University, Universidade Federal do ABC and PUC Paraná who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted with the interdisciplinarity of the project. We also thank Dr. Fanny Costa for her research to define a priority list of pharmaceutical compounds of this study. And a special thanks to GCU for laboratory and office facilities and for the opportunity to develop the research abroad from Brazil. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers that contributed significantly to improve this manuscript providing valuable comments, suggestions, and corrections particularly to our statistical approach.

Funding

This research is funded by British Council, Newton Fund and CAPES (Coordination for Improvement of Higher Education Personnel) (process number 004/16).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Engenharia, Modelagem e Ciências Sociais Aplicadas, Universidade Federal do ABC, UFABC, Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil

    Juliana Ikebe Otomo, Tatiane Araujo de Jesus & Lúcia Helena Gomes Coelho

  2. Centro de Química e Meio Ambiente, IPEN - Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, Av. Lineu Prestes 2242, São Paulo, SP, 05508-000, Brazil

    Lucilena Rebelo Monteiro

  3. School of Computing, Engineering and Built Environment, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow, Scotland

    Colin Hunter, Karin Helwig, Joanne Roberts & Ole Pahl

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  1. Juliana Ikebe Otomo
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  2. Tatiane Araujo de Jesus
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  3. Lúcia Helena Gomes Coelho
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by JIO, CH, JR, and KH. The statistical analysis was performed by LRM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JIO and LRM, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Juliana Ikebe Otomo.

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Ikebe Otomo, J., Araujo de Jesus, T., Gomes Coelho, L.H. et al. Effect of eight common Brazilian drugs on Lemna minor and Salvinia auriculata growth. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 43747–43762 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13795-9

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