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      Biomonitoring of Indoor Air Fungal or Chemical Toxins with Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes

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      Pathogens
      MDPI AG

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          Abstract

          Bad indoor air quality due to toxins and other impurities can have a negative impact on human well-being, working capacity and health. Therefore, reliable methods to monitor the health risks associated with exposure to hazardous indoor air agents are needed. Here, we have used transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans nematode strains carrying stress-responsive fluorescent reporters and evaluated their ability to sense fungal or chemical toxins, especially those that are present in moisture-damaged buildings. Liquid-based or airborne exposure of nematodes to mycotoxins, chemical agents or damaged building materials reproducibly resulted in time- and dose-dependent fluorescent responses, which could be quantitated by either microscopy or spectrometry. Thus, the C. elegans nematodes present an easy, ethically acceptable and comprehensive in vivo model system to monitor the response of multicellular organisms to indoor air toxicity.

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          Most cited references60

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          THE GENETICS OF CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS

          Methods are described for the isolation, complementation and mapping of mutants of Caenorhabditis elegans, a small free-living nematode worm. About 300 EMS-induced mutants affecting behavior and morphology have been characterized and about one hundred genes have been defined. Mutations in 77 of these alter the movement of the animal. Estimates of the induced mutation frequency of both the visible mutants and X chromosome lethals suggests that, just as in Drosophila, the genetic units in C.elegans are large.
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            Architectural design influences the diversity and structure of the built environment microbiome

            Buildings are complex ecosystems that house trillions of microorganisms interacting with each other, with humans and with their environment. Understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine the diversity and composition of the built environment microbiome—the community of microorganisms that live indoors—is important for understanding the relationship between building design, biodiversity and human health. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene to quantify relationships between building attributes and airborne bacterial communities at a health-care facility. We quantified airborne bacterial community structure and environmental conditions in patient rooms exposed to mechanical or window ventilation and in outdoor air. The phylogenetic diversity of airborne bacterial communities was lower indoors than outdoors, and mechanically ventilated rooms contained less diverse microbial communities than did window-ventilated rooms. Bacterial communities in indoor environments contained many taxa that are absent or rare outdoors, including taxa closely related to potential human pathogens. Building attributes, specifically the source of ventilation air, airflow rates, relative humidity and temperature, were correlated with the diversity and composition of indoor bacterial communities. The relative abundance of bacteria closely related to human pathogens was higher indoors than outdoors, and higher in rooms with lower airflow rates and lower relative humidity. The observed relationship between building design and airborne bacterial diversity suggests that we can manage indoor environments, altering through building design and operation the community of microbial species that potentially colonize the human microbiome during our time indoors.
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              Chemosensation in C. elegans.

              C. elegans has a highly developed chemosensory system that enables it to detect a wide variety of volatile (olfactory) and water-soluble (gustatory) cues associated with food, danger, or other animals. Much of its nervous system and more than 5% of its genes are devoted to the recognition of environmental chemicals. Chemosensory cues can elicit chemotaxis, rapid avoidance, changes in overall motility, and entry into and exit from the alternative dauer developmental stage. These behaviors are regulated primarily by the amphid chemosensory organs, which contain eleven pairs of chemosensory neurons. Each amphid sensory neuron expresses a specific set of candidate receptor genes and detects a characteristic set of attractants, repellents, or pheromones. About 500-1000 different G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are expressed in chemosensory neurons, and these may be supplemented by alternative sensory pathways as well. Downstream of the GPCRs, two signal transduction systems are prominent in chemosensation, one that uses cGMP as a second messenger to open cGMP-gated channels, and one that relies upon TRPV channels. These sensory pathways are modulated and fine-tuned by kinases and phosphatases. Chemosensory preferences can be modified by sensory adaptation, developmental history, and associative learning, allowing C. elegans to integrate context and experience into its behavior.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                (View ORCID Profile)
                Journal
                PATHCD
                Pathogens
                Pathogens
                MDPI AG
                2076-0817
                February 2023
                January 19 2023
                : 12
                : 2
                : 161
                Article
                10.3390/pathogens12020161
                4b933b4b-2b9e-46c5-8d4e-07968cd2372e
                © 2023

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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