Transcriptional analyses of acute per os exposure and co-exposure of 4-vinylcyclohexene and methylmercury-contaminated diet in adults of Drosophila melanogaster

Piccoli, Bruna Candia; Segatto, Ana Lúcia Anversa; Loreto, Élgion L.S.; Moreira, José Cláudio Fonseca; Ardisson-Araújo, Daniel M.P.; Rocha, João B.T.

Transcriptional analyses of acute per os exposure and co-exposure of 4-vinylcyclohexene and methylmercury-contaminated diet in adults of Drosophila melanogaster

2020

Continuous exposure to low levels of toxic substances can be associated with delayed physical disturbances, which can be preceded by changes in enzyme activities and gene expression. Thus, understanding changes in the transcriptional profile could help in recognition of early molecular events involved in the toxicity mechanism of toxicants. Vinylcyclohexene (VCH) and methylmercury (MeHg⁺) are xenobiotics, which do not present a completely elucidated mechanism of toxicity. Metabolites of both compounds have some overlapping chemical properties that involve moderate to high affinity for thiol and selenol groups. In this work, we characterized by deep-sequencing transcriptomic approach the effects of VCH and MeHg⁺ on the mRNA transcriptional profile of adults fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) after individual and concomitant exposure to VCH and MeHg⁺. The flies were separated into four groups: control, VCH, MeHg⁺, and VCH + MeHg⁺. After individual exposure, VCH deregulated 38 genes (of which the majority was up-regulated), whereas MeHg⁺ altered 26 genes (i.e., 14 down-regulated). VCH and MeHg⁺ co-exposure changed 72 genes with a high number of genes down-regulated. Together, the results suggest that although the compounds could have some similar protein targets (e.g., sulfhydryl-containing proteins), the transcriptional profile after individual exposures and co-exposure were completely different.

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