Immunotoxic effect of arsenic trioxide on Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

A Pseudomonas aeruginosa–Caenorhabditis elegans pathogenesis model was utilized to assess immunotoxic effects of arsenic trioxide (As₂O₃). After 2 h of As₂O₃ exposure, 500 µmol L⁻¹ and 1 mmol L⁻¹ As₂O₃ treatment significantly decreased median survivals of C. elegans (10 h after L4/adult molt). However, 2 h of As₂O₃ exposure caused no significant changes in the survivals rates of C. elegans (2 h after L4/adult molt). Notably, a significant dose-related immunoenhancement was observed in C. elegans (2 h after L4/adult molt) after 12 h of arsenite exposure.

Keywords:

• immunotoxicity
• arsenic
• Caenorhabditis elegans
• Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• fast-killing assay

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02772248.2015.1113286

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Key Project of the Chinese Ministry of Education [grant number 211081]; the Project of the Anhui Provincial Department of Education [grant number KJ2011B156]; the Starting-up Foundation of Huainan Normal University; the Starting-up Foundation of Binzhou Medical University [grant number BY2013KYQD12]; the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation [grant number ZR2014HL005].