Toxicity assessment of acetylsalicylic acid using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

Urban and industrial growth has triggered the release of toxic compounds into the environment, causing negative impacts on the population and ecosystems. Among the pollutants, pharmaceuticals have drawn attention due to potential of impacting the environment at ecological relevant concentrations. Aspirin is widely used in human medicine as an analgesic, antipyretic and in actively preventing platelet aggregation, and it is frequently detected in influent samples at relatively high concentrations. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae consists in simple eukaryotic model, widely used for toxicity assessment. The current study aims to evaluate the toxicity of the anti-inflammatory acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) using viability and conductometric assays. The viability assays were based on the evaluation of the number of viable cells present in a cell suspension after 1 hour exposure, while the conductometric tests were done by monitoring of changes in the specific conductivity of suspensions of S. cerevisiae due to inhibition of fermentation in toxic conditions after 30 minutes of exposure. The viability tests showed no reduction of viability at the evaluated concentrations (up to 100 mg L-1). The conductometric assays demonstrated low sensibility of the yeast to aspirin with EC5030min of 815 mg L-1. The results also indicated that there was no increase in the sensitivity of conductometric assays even at 6 hours of exposure. Furthermore, the acute toxicity data was compared with data obtained from in silico toxicity models (ECOSAR). Toxicity data collated from the software from different trophic levels showed EC5096h, LC5048h and LC96h of 867, 1774 and 777 mg L-1 for green algae, daphnid and fish, respectively, indicating low toxicity of aspirin.