The PhD researcher Inmaculada Fuertes Rodríguez will defend her thesis on omic approaches to characterize the toxicity of pollutants using Daphnia magna. Language of the event: English
The PhD student Inmaculada Fuertes Rodríguez, from the Environmental Toxicology group, will defend her thesis online next 9th March at 11:30h. Those who want to attend the PhD defence will have to send an email to vd.quimica.recerca@ub.edu.
Title: Application of omic approaches on the characterization of novel toxicity mechanisms of pollutants using Daphnia magna as model species
Directors: Dr. Carlos Barata, Dr. Demetrio Rauldúa and Dr. Encarnación Moyano Morcillo
Thesis Comittee: Dra. Gemma Fabriàs Domingo, Dr. Juan Carlos Navarro Tárrega, Dr. John Kenneth Colbourne
Abstract:
Environmental toxicology is undergoing a paradigm shift due to the new concerning environmental reality. Nowadays, there is a need to manage more subtle and chronic effects of single and mixture of chemicals at lower and environmental relevant concentrations and to deal with emerging contaminants (ECs), whose harmful effects in ecosystems and toxicity mechanisms are still unknown. In order to address this problem, and develop strategies for evaluating the toxicity of pollutants with greater environmental relevance, it is necessary to apply integrative approaches combining tools from different disciplines. Omic technologies, which allow the holistic measure of effects at low levels of biological organization in high throughput platforms, have the potential to contribute to the development and application of mechanistic data in designing more efficient and effective testing strategies. Overall, this thesis aimed to prove the importance of integrating omic and conventional toxicological approaches in order to provide significant information to unravel new toxicity mechanism triggered by ECs on the aquatic environment using Daphnia. magna as model species. The ECs studied included suspected lipid disruptors (i.e. EDCs) and ECs that affect the central nervous system (i.e. neuroactive pharmaceuticals and other chemicals). Different integrative approaches have been developed to assess the toxicity of these compounds by linking effects on reproduction and behavior (individual organism responses), gene expression and its subsequent metabolomic (and thus lipidomic) disruption in the aquatic model organisms D. magna. The ability of metabolic disruptive to alter lipid homeostasis and reproductive effects, as well as the molecular signaling pathways that modulate this disruption have been addressed in chapter 2. Lipidomic effects of neuiro-active drugs at environmental concentrations and the driven molecular mechanisms behind them was studied in Chapter 3. Finally the study of transcriptomic and neurological related metabolites (neurotransmitters) in neuro active pharmaceuticals that affected cognitive behavior in Daphnis were addressed in chapter 4.. The results obtained allowed to link transcriptomic signaling pathways with metabolomics (lipidomic and neurotransmitter profiles) and apical responses (reproduction and behavior)
