DELORAZEPAM TREATMENT EFFECTS ON EARLY EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO MODEL ORGANISMS

In recent decades, technological advances in water pollution assessments allowed the identification of new environmental contaminants, including pharmaceuticals. The presence of benzodiazepines in the environment, especially after the recent COVID-19 pandemic, is reported to be steadily increasing, comporting growing concerns due to the potentially high impact they exert on the aquatic biota1. These psychoactive drugs are found in all environmental matrices and are very effective, even at very low concentrations, since binding with high affinity to GABA and TSPO receptors, highly conserved in invertebrates and vertebrates2. In recent years, our attention focused on the effects of delorazepam exposure on Xenopus laevis early embryogenesis, demonstrating cytological, physiological and biochemical consequences. To expand knowledge of delorazepam’s harmful effects, the same concentrations used for Xenopus were tested on the early developmental stages of Artemia salina nauplii, an excellent bioindicator model in toxicity studies3. Similar effects on embryo development were observed in the two models: accelerated hatching, increased mortality, altered growth rate, and morphological anomalies, with severe damage to the eye. A decrease in locomotory activity was also registered. Curiously, alterations in lipid reserve consumption were observed in both models, indicative of interference with the yolk consumption mechanism and possible cause of delayed development progression. In conclusion, exposure to this psychotropic drug seems to interfere with the same pathways, inducing similar alterations in two evolutionary distant species. Once again, our study underlines the threat represented by the presence of this pharmaceutical in nature and also looks at the possible harmful consequences of human use by young people or pregnant women.