Abstract
Cadmium is a well-known environmental toxicant. At the cellular level, exposure to cadmium results in cytotoxic effects through the elevation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Although cadmium exposure leads to the dysfunction of various organs, the underlying mechanisms of the toxic effects of cadmium in vivo are still largely unknown. Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a useful model animal and exhibits unique biological reactions in response to environmental toxicants. In this study, the toxic mechanisms of cadmium exposure in C. elegans were investigated using N-acetylcysteine (NAC), which has dual functions, i.e., as a chelator of metals and as an antioxidant. NAC did not inhibit the uptake of cadmium into nematodes, suggesting that NAC did not function as a chelator of cadmium under these experimental conditions. Based on this finding, we investigated the effect of NAC as an antioxidant on representative phenotypic traits caused by cadmium exposure—reduced body length, aversion behavior, and shortened lifespan. NAC did not reverse the decreased body size but did clearly restore the aversion behavior and the shortened lifespan. These data suggest that aversion behavior and shortened lifespan are mediated by oxidative stress in C. elegans.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center for the strains used in this study, the members of the Matsuoka laboratory for helpful discussion, and K. Matsumura for assistance in the maintenance of worms.
Funding
This research was funded in part by the JSPS KAKENHI Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (JP17K07746 to K.H. and JP19K10582 to M.M.).
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Conceptualization, K.H. and M.M.; investigation, K.H.; writing, K.H.; editing, M.M.; funding acquisition, K.H. and M.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Hirota, K., Matsuoka, M. N-acetylcysteine restores the cadmium toxicity of Caenorhabditis elegans. Biometals 34, 1207–1216 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-021-00322-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10534-021-00322-z