Yeast strains as bioindicators to the presence of toxic compounds in the soil

• Grant number: 13/12834-3
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2014
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Microbiology - Applied Microbiology
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Humberto Gomes
• Grantee: Luiz Humberto Gomes
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Marcos Yassuo Kamogawa ; Simone Possedente de Lira

Abstract

Due to the wide metropolitan expansions and its disorientated growth and industrialization, soil contamination is increasing resulting from uncontrolled ejectment on soil and rivers, offering risks to human and animal health. For this reason, we seek for faster methods to assure contaminated areas and then lead to bioremediation. Several micro-organisms and organisms are being used in a way to try to elaborate a new toxicological test that is fast, easy, low-cost and its results can be extrapolated to superior eukaryotic. Yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae shows a high homology to superior eukaryotic, allowing studies of relevance for toxicology to human biology, besides it has an easy cultivation protocol and it is very sensible to environmental changes. Another advantage is to substitute rodent, earthworms and plants in bioassays, which are time expanding and expensive. Toxicological tests using yeast are based on its growth in the presence of the toxicant agent, using the Optical Density (O.P.) at 600 nm which shows the live and dead cells or the Neubauer´s chamber counting system. Therefore, none of those techniques disable the measurement of metabolic stage of the cell. The TTC (2,3,5-Triphenyltetrazolium chloride) is used to determine the seeds viability and also on the identification of yeast petit mutants based on the conversion of TTC into formazan, measuring the metabolic state of the yeast cell. This work aimed to identify different yeast strains as bioindicators to the presence of toxic compounds in the soil (cadmiun and gasoline) associated to the TTC technique. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

GOMES, LUIZ HUMBERTO; RONCATO DUARTE, KEILA MARIA; KAMOGAWA, MARCOS YASSUO; FERRAREZI, JESSICA APARECIDA; ANDRINO, FELIPE GABRIEL; LOBUONO TAVARES, ANA CLAUDIA; MARIA DA SILVA, ANA PAULA; LAGUN, SERGIO ESCHEVERRIGARAY; DE LIRA, SIMONE POSSEDENTE. YTOX: a rapid toxicity test based on the dehydrogenase activity of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for detection of contaminants in water samples. Journal of Microbiological Methods, v. 161, p. 43-46, JUN 2019. (13/12834-3)