Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) induces behavioural, reproductive and developmental toxicological impacts in Caenorhabditis elegans at concentrations relevant to the contaminated areas

Abstract

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a prevalent, persistent organic pollutant (POP) in the environment. The potential toxic impacts of PFOA on human and ecological health is becoming an increasing concern worldwide. In this study, we investigated the acute toxicity of PFOA in terms of growth, mortality, lifespan, neurobehaviour, fecundity and livelihood in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), a free-living ecologically important animal model species. The acute toxicity (LC50) of PFOA was found to be 4.42 µM (1.83 mg/L). PFOA exposure induced alteration in locomotor behaviour in C. elegans. The reproduction capacity of C. elegans was also reduced after exposure to 0.1 µM (41.4 µg/L) PFOA. Similarly, developmental toxicity was also documented with the reduction in lifespan and alteration in chemotaxis plasticity above 1 µM (414 µg/L) PFOA. C. elegans bioaccumulated PFOA about 520 times than the surrounding concentration when exposed to 0.41 ug/L PFOA. Given that PFOA has demonstrated its toxicological impacts on the reproductive capacity and lifespan of C. elegans at the concentrations that are commonly found at contaminated areas, it is likely that the contamination of PFOA will have detrimental effects on the food chain in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Thus, the results of this study have significant implications for the ecological risk assessment and remediation of PFOA.

Keywords

• Behavioural toxicity
• Caenorhabditis elegans
• Perfluorooctanoic acid
• PFOA
• Reproductive toxicity