PROTEINS EXPRESSION IN Acanthamoeba castellanii AFTER EXPOSURE TO AMMONIUM CHLORIDE
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Date
2011
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Sustainability Science and Management
Abstract
The aquatic environment is easily contaminated with ammonium from the release of
biological wastes that contain ammonium into rivers and oceans by urban and agricultural run-off
and this affects the life of aquatic organisms, including small, free-living naked amoebae such as
Acanthamoeba spp. These amoebae are common in water and, being single-cell organisms, they can
easily respond to any changes in the environment, such as ammonium contamination, by expressing
specific proteins known as biomarkers which can be suggested as a new tool for rapid diagnosis
and monitoring of environmental health hazard. In this study, Acanthamoeba castellanii was treated
with different concentrations of ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) and the cytotoxicity of ammonium
chloride on the amoeba and its IC
50 were examined and determined. The treated amoebae were also
subjected to 2-D electrophoresis for protein profile analysis. The IC50 of NH4Cl against A. castellanii
obtained in this study was 0.64 mg/mL. In the protein profile analysis, the total number of protein
spots that were consistently observed in control Acanthamoeba were 93, and the number of these
spots decreased as the concentration of NH4Cl used increased. Besides that, some newly-expressed
protein spots were observed in treated Acanthamoeba. Degradation of certain proteins and synthesis
of new proteins in treated Acanthamoeba observed in the present study may be indicative of cellular
stress and these proteins can be used as biomarkers to access ammonium contamination in the
aquatic environment for preventive measures.
Description
Keywords
protein expression, Acanthamoeba castellanii, ammonium chloride, biomarker, IC50