Plants metabolize polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into hydroxylated derivatives (OH-PCBs), which are sometimes more toxic than the parent PCBs. The objective of this research was to compare the toxicity of a suite of PCBs and OH-PCBs toward the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. While parent PCBs and higher-chlorinated OH-PCBs exhibited a low or non-detectable toxicity, lower-chlorinated OH-PCBs significantly inhibited the germination rate and plant growth, with IC50 ranging from 1.6 to 12.0 mg L-1. The transcriptomic response of A. thaliana to 2,5-dichlorobiphenyl (2,5-DCB), and its OH-metabolite, 4'-OH-2,5-DCB, was then examined using whole-genome expression microarrays (Affymetrix). Exposure to 2,5-DCB and 4'-OH-2,5-DCB resulted in different expression patterns, with the former leading to enrichment of genes involved in response to toxic stress and detoxification functions. Exposure to 2,5-DCB induced multiple xenobiotic response genes, such as cytochrome P-450 and glutathione S-transferases, potentially involved in the PCB metabolism. On the contrary, exposure to both compounds resulted in downregulation of genes involved in stresses not directly related to toxicity. Unlike its OH-derivative, 2,5-DCB was shown to induce a transcriptomic profile similar to plant safeners, which are non-toxic chemicals stimulating detoxification pathways in plants. The differentiated induction of detoxification enzymes by 2,5-DCB may explain its lower phytotoxicity as compared with 4'-OH-2,5-DCB.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 June 2017.
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#27,271,915
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