Nuevas aproximaciones toxicológicas para la detección de disruptores endocrinos y lipídicos en ecosistemas mediterráneos y sistemas celulares

Resumo

Chemical compounds derived from human activities continuously reach aquatic systems, where they are available to the organisms that inhabit them. Traditionally, environmental risk assessment has been based on the chemical analysis of priority pollutants in environmental matrices. However, the need to evaluate the effect of these contaminants in organisms has led to the development of biomarkers that report physiological and biochemical changes in organisms as a consequence of exposure to xenobiotics. Biomarkers used in this Thesis include biomarkers of exposure to xenobiotics and biomarkers of endocrine disruption. Recently, analytical and bioinformatic advances have made possible the application of omic technologies to discover new biomarkers at the molecular level. In addition, due to the need to reduce the number of animals in the experimental studies and to improve the practices carried out in laboratories, exposure experiments and field studies are being replaced by in vitro tests, where the use of lines cell phones is being applied with very favorable results. The combination of traditional biomarkers (metabolic enzymes, changes in gene expression, analysis of steroids, metabolites in bile), together with the analysis of lipidoma, has been an efficient tool to determine the impact of pollution in Mediterranean rivers and juveniles of sea bass exposed in laboratory to the synthetic progestin drospirenone. On the other hand, in vitro tests with cell lines have allowed determining the presence of bioactive contaminants in a Mediterranean coastal area in Croatia and alterations in the lipid profile of PLHC-1 cells cultured in different media and exposed to RXR agonists. The use of these in vitro models will allow in the future to considerably reducing the use of organisms in Environmental Toxicology.