| Hazardous Effects of Effluent from the Chrome Plating Industry: 70 kDa Heat Shock Protein Expression as a Marker of Cellular Damage in Transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (hsp70-lacZ) Indranil Mukhopadhyay, Daya Krishna Saxena, and Debapratim Kar Chowdhuri Embryotoxicology Section, Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India Abstract
Hazardous effects of an effluent from the chrome plating industry were examined by exposing transgenic Drosophila melanogaster (hsp70-lacZ) to various concentrations (0.05, 0.1, 1.0, 10.0, and 100.0 µL/mL) of the effluent through diet. The emergence pattern of adult flies was affected, along with impaired reproductive performance at the higher dietary concentrations of the effluent. Interestingly, the effect of the effluent was more pronounced in male than in female flies. The effect of the effluent on development of adult flies was concurrent with the expression pattern of the heat shock protein 70 gene (hsp70) , both in larval tissues and in the reproductive organs of adult flies. We observed a dose- and time-dependent expression of hsp70 in third instar larvae exposed for different time intervals. Absence of hsp70 expression in larvae exposed to 0.1 µL/mL of the effluent indicated that this is the highest nontoxic concentration for Drosophila. The stress gene assay in the reproductive organs of adult flies revealed hsp70 expression in the testis of male flies only. However, trypan blue dye exclusion tests in these tissues indicate tissue damage in the male accessory gland of adult flies, which was further confirmed by ultrastructural observations. In the present study we demonstrate the utility of transgenic Drosophila as an alternative animal model for evaluating hazardous effects of the effluent from the chrome plating industry and further reveal the cytoprotective role of hsp70 and its expression as an early marker in environmental risk assessment. Key words: alternative animal model, biomarker, chrome plating industry, cytotoxicity, effluent, hsp70, reproduction, tissue damage, transgenic Drosophila melanogaster. Environ Health Perspect 111:1926-1932 (2003) . doi:10.1289/ehp.6339 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 7 August 2003]
Address correspondence to D.K. Chowdhuri, Embryotoxicology Section, Industrial Toxicology Research Centre, P.O. Box 80, M.G. Marg, Lucknow 226 001, India. Telephone: 91-522-222-7587 ext. 219. Fax: 91-522-222-8227. E-mail: dkarchowdhuri@rediffmail.com We thank the director of the ITRC for his keen interest throughout the study. We thank S.C. Lakhotia (Cytogenetics Laboratory, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi) for Bg9 fly strain ; S. Lindquist (Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) for Drosophila Hsp70 monoclonal antibody 7Fb ; V.K. Bajpai (Electron Microscopy Unit, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India) for electron microscopy ; and N. Narayanan for X-gal staining. I.M. was supported by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research Senior Research Fellowship grant 31/29/129/2002 EMR-1. D.K.C received financial assistance from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, New Delhi (grant BT/PRO 390/R&D/12/030/96) . The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 17 March 2003 ; accepted 6 August 2003.
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