Possible ecological risk of two pharmaceuticals diclofenac and paracetamol demonstrated on a model plant Lemna minor

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Authors

KUMMEROVÁ Marie ZEZULKA Štěpán BABULA Petr TŘÍSKA Jan

Year of publication 2016
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Journal of Hazardous Materials
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2015.09.057
Field Physiology
Keywords Diclofenac; Paracetamol; Lemna minor; Oxidative stress; Antioxidant mechanism;
Description Lemna minor is often used in environmental risk assessment and it can be supposed that usually evaluated parameters will be reliable even for assessing the risk of pharmaceuticals. Subtle changes in duckweed plant number, biomass production, and leaf area size induced by 10-day-exposure to diclofenac (DCF) and paracetamol (PCT) (0.1, 10, and 100 ug/L), excepting 100 ug/L DCF, are in contrast with considerable changes on biochemical and histochemical level. Both drugs caused a decrease in content of photosynthetic pigments (by up to 50%), an increase in non-photochemical quenching (by 65%) and decrease in relative chlorophyll fluorescence decay values (by up to 90% with DCF). Both DCF and especially PCT increased amount of reactive nitrogen and oxygen species in roots. DCF-induced effects included mainly increased lipid peroxidation (by 78%), disturbation in membrane integrity and lowering both oxidoreductase and dehydrogenase activities (by 30%). PCT increased the content of soluble proteins and phenolics. Higher concentrations of both DCF and PCT increased the levels of oxidised ascorbate (by 30%) and oxidised thiols (by up to 84% with DCF). Glutathion-reductase activity was elevated by both pharmaceuticals (nearly by 90%), glutathion-S-transferase activity increased mainly with PCT (by 22%). The early and sensitive indicators of DCF and PCT phytotoxicity stress in duckweed are mainly the changes in biochemical processes, connected with activation of defense mechanisms against oxidative stress.

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