Toxicity assessment of ferrous iron overload conditions in Caenorhabditis elegans.

MELISA FERREYRA; CARINA VASQUEZ ESPEJO; PAULINA PAEZ; MIRIAM VIRGOLINI

Congreso; Third Latin American C. elegans Meeting; 2023

Toxicity assessment of ferrous iron overload conditions in Caenorhabditis elegansMelisa Rut Ferreyra2, Carina Vásquez-Espejo3,4, Paulina Páez3,4 y Miriam B. Virgolini1,2 1IFEC-CONICET, 2Departamento de Farmacología Otto Orsingher, 3UNITEFA-CONICET, 4Departamento de Ciencias Farmacéuticas, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina. E mail: melisa.ferreyra@mi.unc.edu.arThe present study includes the assessment of the toxicity of formulated and nanoformulated ferrous compounds and the evaluation of the antioxidant ferrostatin-1 in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). The potential toxicity of FeSO4.7H2O and FeSO4 nanoparticles both at 0 mM concentrations; 0.5mM; 1mM; 1.5 mM and 2 mM was evaluated, analyzing the survival and locomotor activity of C. elegans. To this end, worms of the N2 strain in the L4 larval stage were exposed to both compounds in liquid K medium for one hour. Subsequently, mortality was evaluated and movement speed was recorded using the Microtracker SMART equipment (Phylumtech S.A., Argentina). The results show a dose-dependent increase in lethality in response to FeSO4.7H2O, which is reversed at all concentrations by pretreatment with ferrostatin-1. On the contrary, and probably due to their biocompatible coating, the ferrous nanoparticles showed mortality similar to that of the control animals (except for the 0.5 mM dose, which was higher). Regarding locomotion, a U-shaped decrease in speed was observed in response to FeSO4.7H2O, which was partially reversed by pretreatment with ferrostatin-1. On the contrary, the nanoformulation induced a dose-dependent increase in mobility. These data demonstrate the usefulness of the C. elegans model organism to demonstrate the toxicity resulting from ferrous iron overload, the ability to respond to antioxidants, and its sensitivity to identify differential effects according to the formulation.Financing agencies: PICT 2017-0874 and PICT 2019-02444 from ANPCyT (MBV).