Network-based investigation of petroleum hydrocarbons-induced ecotoxicological effects and their risk assessment.

Petroleum hydrocarbons (PHs) are compounds composed mostly of carbon and hydrogen, originating from crude oil and its derivatives. PHs are primarily released into the environment through the diffusion of oils, resulting from anthropogenic activities like transportation and offshore drilling, and accidental incidents such as oil spills. Once released, these PHs can persist in different ecosystems and cause long-term detrimental ecological impacts.

Leveraging integrative toxicogenomic approach towards development of stressor-centric adverse outcome pathway networks for plastic additives.

Plastics are widespread pollutants found in atmospheric, terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems due to their extensive usage and environmental persistence. Plastic additives, that are intentionally added to achieve specific functionality in plastics, leach into the environment upon plastic degradation and pose considerable risk to ecological and human health. Limited knowledge concerning the presence of plastic additives throughout plastic life cycle has hindered their effective regulation, thereby posing risks to product safety.

Responses of plankton community to threshold metal concentrations of cadmium and lead in a mesocosm experiment at Bay of Bengal.

Metals are essential at trace levels to aquatic organisms for the function of many physiological and biological processes. But their elevated levels are toxic to the ecosystem and even brings about shifts in the plankton population. Threshold limits such as Predicted No Effect Concentration (PNEC - 0.

An integrative data-centric approach to derivation and characterization of an adverse outcome pathway network for cadmium-induced toxicity.

Cadmium is a prominent toxic heavy metal that contaminates both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Owing to its high biological half-life and low excretion rates, cadmium causes a variety of adverse biological outcomes. Adverse outcome pathway (AOP) networks were envisioned to systematically capture toxicological information to enable risk assessment and chemical regulation.

Prescribing sea water quality criteria for arsenic, cadmium and lead through species sensitivity distribution.

Water quality standards are essential for regulation of contaminants in marine environment. Seawater quality criteria (SWQC) for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) have not been developed for India. The aim of this study is to derive the SWQC for the metals based on Species Sensitivity Distribution (SSD).

A review of mesocosm experiments on heavy metals in marine environment and related issues of emerging concerns.

Mesocosms are real-world environmental science tools for bridging the gap between laboratory-scale experiments and actual habitat studies on ecosystem complexities. These experiments are increasingly being applied in understanding the complex impacts of heavy metals, ocean acidification, global warming, and oil spills. The insights of the present review indicate how metals and metal-bound activities impact on various aspects of ecological complexities like prey predator cues, growth, embryonic development, and reproduction.

Hypericin-PDT-induced rapid necrotic death in human squamous cell carcinoma cultures after multiple treatment.

PDT (photodynamic therapy) has been used for the treatment of NMCC (non-melanoma cutaneous cancer) particularly, human SCC (squamous cell carcinoma). However, the nature of the photosensitizer, the activation light source and the mode of cell death induced post-PDT remains elusive. We tried to optimize PDT using the light-activated (320-400 nm) St John's Wort-derived compound, Hyp (hypericin).

Depigmentation in melanomas increases the efficacy of hypericin-mediated photodynamic-induced cell death.

Melanoma is the main cause of death in skin cancers. Despite combating with early detection, resection and post-operative therapy, melanoma treatment remains unsuccessful and investigations into other forms of adjuvant therapy such as photodynamic therapy (PDT) are prudent. This study proposes that depigmentation i.

Photodynamic therapy-induced killing is enhanced in depigmented metastatic melanoma cells.

The resistance of pigmented human melanomas over their unpigmented counterparts to a number of therapies has suggested that the presence of intracellular melanin plays a role in rendering these cells less susceptible to cell death, probably through the ability of this pigment to act as an intracellular antioxidant, thus neutralizing chemotherapeutic-induced ROS (reactive oxygen species). PDT (photodynamic therapy) was recently suggested as an attractive, adjunctive therapy owing to its cellular specificity and limited side effects. In the present study, we propose that first depigmenting melanomas with a reversible TYR (tyrosinase) inhibitor such as PTU (phenylthiourea) increases their susceptibility to HYP-PDT (hypericin-mediated PDT).

Evaluation of the free radical scavenging activity and radioprotective efficacy of Grewia asiatica fruit.

The radioprotective effect of Grewia asiatica fruit (GAE) which contains anthocyanin-type cyanidin 3-glucoside, vitamins C and A, minerals, carotenes and dietary fibre was studied. For the study Swiss albino mice were divided into five groups: (1) control (vehicle treated); (2) GAE treated (700 mg kg(-1) day(-1) for 15 days); (3) irradiated (5 Gy); (4) GAE+irradiated and (5) irradiated+GAE treated. The irradiation of animals resulted in a significant elevation of lipid peroxidation in terms of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) content and depletion in glutathione (GSH) and protein levels at all intervals studied, namely 1-30 days, in comparison to the control group.