Cytotoxic effect of aluminium ions on unicellular eukaryotic organism

Abstract

Article Details: Received: 2019-10-08 | Accepted: 2019-11-26 | Available online: 2019-12-31

https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2019.22.04.130-137

Aluminium is abundant in nature, food, or water and thus its exposition is part of everyday life. However, overexposure can result in cellular malfunctions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of aluminium on eukaryotes, with the use of Schizosaccharomyces pombe as model organism. Spectrophotometry at OD600, inductively-coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and microscopy techniques were used to analyse aluminium responses on the living system. Our results revealed that exposition of increasing aluminium concentrations lead to cell growth inhibition in a concentration dependent manner. Furthermore, aluminium incorporation by the cell from media markedly increased with rising Al concentration. Our results indicate that the yeast self-protection system in the presence of lower Al(OH)3 concentration in the environment avoids to large extent dramatic uptake of aluminium by the cell while cells surrounded by higher aluminium concentrations lose this ability. Supplementation of the growth media with 100 μM Al(OH)3 doubled the amount of Al in the cell compared to untreated control (232 mg/kg vs. 459 mg/kg), whereas addition of 1 mM Al(OH)3 caused more than hundred fold increase of intracellular Al content (27,781 mg/kg). Here we also show that high concentrations of aluminium have an impact on cell morphology leading to cell integrity disruption. Findings presented in this study have the ambition to bring more light in an issue of how aluminium mediates impairments of the living organism.

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