Ways to indicate unwanted Biological Effects of Chemicals
Researchers from LiU have applied a method to identify the proteins in the body affected by chemicals. The technique can discover whether a substance has biological effects on an organism early.
They’re in the water, the food we drink, and the environment around us. More than 100,000 chemicals are employed in manufacturing, agriculture, industry, and consumer articles. Few of them can have adverse effects on our health. However, a phenomenon is known as the “cocktail effect” is known.
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In late decades, one of the challenges in toxicology has been predicting the effects of exposure to mixtures of various chemicals.
“Levels of pollutants are constantly increasing, and it is challenging to test the effects of all chemicals. In addition, it is challenging to test mixtures of substances. I believe that our technique can lead to more efficient use of time and money than conventional methods, which test the effects on one biological mechanism at a time”, says a learner in the Division of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences.
Functions of proteins affected.
The researchers emphasize that the way they detail in an article in the Journal of Proteomics can be employed to detect, at an early stage, unwanted biological effects of substances. These things can then be studied in more detail through other methods.
“Chemicals interface with proteins fairly promiscuously, and we frequently find that numerous proteins are affected by the substances we test. We see that the operations of proteins are afflicted by their interactions with chemicals, which is consistent with the effects of pollutants and damaging substances in the cell”, says a professor in BKV who has led the study.
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