Genotoxicity set up in nauplii and adults of Artemia franciscana exposed to phenanthrene, naphthalene, fluoranthene and benzo(k)fluoranthene

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) consist of a group of over 100 different organic compounds mainly generated and released by anthropogenic activities. They are formed by two or more fused benzene rings. Because of their low water solubility and hydrophobicity, they tend to be adsorbed and accumulated in sediment, where their degradation rate is very low. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have been carried out so far to investigate the in vitro effects of PAHs on Artemia franciscana. Artemia is easy to manage at lab scale, but it is not a really sensitive biological model considering the traditional endpoints (i.e., cysts hatching, mortality of nauplii). Thus, we focused on genotoxicity to investigate the potential effects of phenanthrene (PHE), naphthalene (NAP), fluoranthene (FLT) and benzo-k-fluoranthene (BkF). Results showed that FLT was the most toxic both for nauplii and adults after 48 h of exposure. Real Time qPCR showed that all toxicants, including BkF which had no negative effects on the survival of the crustacean, were able to switch the gene expression of all nine genes involved in stress response (hsp26, hsp60, hsp70, COXI and COXIII) and developmental process (HAD-like, tcp, UCP2 and CDC48), revealed molecular effects, with almost all genes targeted by all toxicants.