ASSESSMENT OF THE INDUCTION OF AUTOPHAGY/MITOPHAGYBY REPRESENTATIVES OF THE POLYBROMINATED DIPHENYL ETHERS - PBDEs (BDE-47, BDE-99, BDE-153) AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE EXPRESSION OF GENES IN RESPONSE TO OXIDATIVE STRESS

• Grant number: 12/21678-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: June 30, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Pharmacy - Toxicological Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Daniel Junqueira Dorta
• Grantee: Gisele Cristina Bolfarini
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The brominated flame retardants are substances used in various consumer goods to increase fire resistance and / or high temperatures in case of fire, thus increasing the chances of escape and reducing the severity of burns. To this end polybrominated diphenyls ethers (PBDEs) are the most widely used class due to its efficiency in controlling the spread of flame and its low cost. These compounds are among the newly emerging environmental contaminants known to exhibit a lack of toxicological data, but the potential damage to the environment.The study of the toxicity of PBDEs is important in the world scene, particularly in countries where there is a lack of control, such as Brazil. One of the contributing factors to this scenario is the lack of values indicating the contamination levels of the Brazilian ecosystem, making it difficult to assess the degree of exposure of the population. Although the data are limited, it has been shown in the literature that show evidence PBDEs mutagenic and carcinogenic in different experimental models, in this case, evaluation of the mechanism of the mutagenic potential of PBDE contribute to confirming the toxicity of these contaminants as well as elucidation of the general risks of this class of flame retardants.In this research project is proposed to investigate the effects of congeners BDE-47, BDE-99 and BDE-153 in inducing autophagy / mitophagy by immunocytochemistry assays for proteins related to the process of autophagy, cytotoxicity assays in the presence of inhibitors and process activators and autophagic also proposes to evaluate the influence of these three PBDEs in gene expression response to oxidative stress and compare the effects found among different peers in relation to structural differences. For this purpose will be used as model experimental cells derived from human hepatoma, since the liver is indicated as primary target deposition of PBDEs in the body and is therefore a suitable experimental model for investigation of these contaminants on the risks to human health and, in addition addition, investigations on the action of PBDEs in human liver data are still scarce and its effects on the autophagic process still does not exist in the literature.