Author(s): Passos, Marisa Sárria Pereira ; Vieira, Ana ; Lima, Ângela ; Fernandes, S. P. S. ; Lopes, Ivo Edgar Araújo ; Gonçalves, Anabela Ferreira ; Gomes, Andreia C ; Salonen, L. M. ; Espiña, Begoña
Date: 2021
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/72946
Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Subject(s): Ciências Naturais::Ciências Biológicas; Engenharia e Tecnologia::Biotecnologia Ambiental; Science & Technology
Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have recently attracted increasing interest for applications in the environmental field, and to this end, the evaluation of their potential toxicity is of importance prior to deploying these materials in the environment. Herein, we report for the first time the acute toxicity assessment of a COF using a zebrafish embryotoxicity test. We studied a TpBD-Me2 COF, a material that we recently showed to efficiently adsorb water pollutants. The COF induced moderate toxicity in the early developmental stages of zebrafish embryos at low concentrations (0.001 μg mL−1), which can be attributed mainly to its particulate size and shape rather than its chemical nature, as demonstrated in the scanning electron microscopy studies performed on the chorions of exposed eggs and by confocal fluorescence imaging of eggs that were exposed to a fluorescent-labeled TpBD-Me2. This study reinforces the relevance of performing acute toxicity tests in complex organisms to attend to the environmental risk of material exposure, and the necessity of developing supported formulations to prevent significant material release into the water.
Nanotechnology Based Functional Solutions (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000019) and the SbDToolBox- Nanotechnology-based tools and tests for Safe-by-Design nanomaterials (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000047) supported by the North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE2020) under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). M. P. S. and L. M. S. were supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions from European Union's 7th Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration under grant agreement 600375. A. C. G. acknowledges the strategic programme UID/BIA/04050/2019, funded by national funds through the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. I. L.'s doctoral grant M3.1.a/F/128/2015 was supported by the Fundo Regional for Ciência e Tecnologia da Região Autónoma dos Açores. S. P. S. F. acknowledges the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia for the Ph.D. scholarship SFRH/BD/131791/2017 and A. G. acknowledges the scholarship SFRH/BD/146807/2019 from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia I.P. The authors are grateful to the CBMA MSc students Ana Teixeira and Inês Pinto for technical support on chorion-off zebrafish embryotoxicity tests and to Enrique Carbó-Arbigay for the help with SEM
