Mike Burgum of Swansea University has secured this year’s UKEMS Young Scientist Award with his research on ‘Applying new-approach methodologies to the genotoxicity testing of ‘forever chemicals’ (presentation (*.PDF)), conducted as part of the CHIASMA Project.
CONGRATULATIONS, Mike!
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Excklusive reproduction of the abstract of Mike’s acceptance speech.
Title: Applying new-approach methodologies to the genotoxicity testing of ‘forever chemicals’
Michael J Burgum1, Shareen H Doak1, Gareth J Jenkins1
1 In Vitro Toxicology Group, Institute of Life Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a synthetic and highly bio-persistent environmental contaminant which have extensive applications in industrial and consumer products. Given that the liver represents a prime target for PFAS bioaccumulation, a HepG2 liver spheroid model was utilised to facilitate acute and repeat dose exposures to two perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).
The HepG2 cells were seeded into 96-well, ultra-low attachment (ULA) plates and exposed to PFOS and PFOA. An acute and repeat dose approach was taken to assess short vs. longer term effects reflected in the DNA damaging potential, assessed using the in vitro micronucleus assay.
Statistically significant cytotoxicity was observed at 10 mM of PFOS (27%) and 20 mM of PFOA (29%) which plateaued at 40 mM for both chemicals. No statistically significant genotoxic effects were observed following PFOA exposures at any test concentration however 40 and 50 mM of PFOS induced a 1.7-fold increase in micronuclei frequency over the untreated control group.
This research has been funded by the European Commission through the United Kingdom Research and Innovation [Grant Agreement Number 101137613].
