Beccacece Livia, Costa Filippo, Pascali Jennifer Paola, Giorgi Federico Manuel
Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Department of Cardiac, Thoracic, Vascular Sciences and Public Health, University of Padua, 35121 Padua, Italy.
Toxics. 2023 Jun 29;11(7):567. doi: 10.3390/toxics11070567.
In recent decades, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have garnered widespread public attention due to their persistence in the environment and detrimental effects on the health of living organisms, spurring the generation of several transcriptome-centered investigations to understand the biological basis of their mechanism. In this study, we collected 2144 publicly available samples from seven distinct animal species to examine the molecular responses to PFAS exposure and to determine if there are conserved responses. Our comparative transcriptional analysis revealed that exposure to PFAS is conserved across different tissues, molecules and species. We identified and reported several genes exhibiting consistent and evolutionarily conserved transcriptional response to PFASs, such as , and , as well as several pathways including lipid metabolism, immune response and hormone pathways. This study provides the first evidence that distinct PFAS molecules induce comparable transcriptional changes and affect the same metabolic processes across inter-species borders. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the impact of PFAS exposure on living organisms and the environment. We believe that this study offers a novel perspective on the molecular responses to PFAS exposure and provides a foundation for future research into developing strategies for mitigating the detrimental effects of these substances in the ecosystem.
近几十年来,全氟和多氟烷基物质(PFASs)因其在环境中的持久性及其对生物体健康的有害影响而受到广泛的公众关注,这促使人们开展了多项以转录组为中心的研究,以了解其作用机制的生物学基础。在本研究中,我们从七个不同的动物物种中收集了2144个公开可用的样本,以检查对PFAS暴露的分子反应,并确定是否存在保守反应。我们的比较转录分析表明,PFAS暴露在不同组织、分子和物种中具有保守性。我们鉴定并报告了几个对PFAS表现出一致且在进化上保守的转录反应的基因,如 、 和 ,以及包括脂质代谢、免疫反应和激素途径在内的几个通路。本研究首次证明,不同的PFAS分子会诱导类似的转录变化,并跨越物种边界影响相同的代谢过程。我们的研究结果对于理解PFAS暴露对生物体和环境的影响具有重要意义。我们相信,本研究为PFAS暴露的分子反应提供了一个新的视角,并为未来开发减轻这些物质在生态系统中有害影响的策略的研究奠定了基础。