Meeting Abstract

S6-1.4  Thursday, Jan. 5  Environmental proteomics in pollution assessment CRISTOBAL, S; AMELINA, H; APRAIZ, I*; BAYAT, N; DANIELSSON, G; Linköping University, Sweden; Stockholm University, Sweden; Stockholm University, Sweden; Stockholm University, Sweden; Stockholm University, Sweden susana.cristobal@liu.se

The environmental sciences are investing great effort into the study of and/or prediction of the effects from the anthropogenic impact on the environment and pollution assessment. On one hand, studies have often been performed on individual organisms, using high concentrations of toxicants and short-term lethal effects as endpoints. On the other hand, traditional attempts to predict effects on organisms and to assess the quality of specific ecosystems based on chemical analysis have proven inefficient. Difficulties arise not only from the wide variety of chemicals but also because the effects can be caused by additively or synergism. It has been difficult to distinguish pollution-related changes from “natural” variations using single biomarkers. Therefore, the analysis of an organism’s proteome allows the detection of changes in the level of individual proteins in response to environmental stressors and could provide a more robust approach for environmental assessment and ecotoxicology. Proteins are key elements of the cellular machinery and changes in the environment will result in changes in the expression of proteins. Environmental proteomics can therefore provide a more robust approach for the assessment of (the cause and effects of) environmental stress. However, environmental proteomics is still in its infancy compared to the state of art reached for medical sciences. Quantitative proteomics could lead to the discovery of biomarkers of exposure and to provide new insights into the mechanisms of toxicity. Examples of protein expression profiles for marine pollution assessment or to detect effects of exposure to pollutants will be presented.