Can environmental realistic concentration of ibuprofen alter the protein profile in Mytilus galloprovincialis?

In an ecotoxicological point of view, the proteomic approach has been successfully applied on the early detection of molecular events implicated in potential adverse biological effects. Being a good bioindicator to assess the impact of aquatic contaminants, mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis have also been used in a variety of proteomic studies. Some emergent contaminants, such as pharmaceutical compounds (namely ibuprofen -IBU) have been an object of enormous attention by the scientific community since their presence in the aquatic systems gradually increases and diverse ecotoxicological effects were observed. Although have been detected adverse responses in mussels exposed to IBU, molecular biological aspects related to the expression of protein profile changes are lacking. IBU is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) included in the therapeutic class of analgesic/antipyretic medicines. It is highly consumed by the general population and their polarity and stability make it bioavailable for the aquatic organisms. Protein expression profiles were studied in digestive gland fractions from unexposed and IBU (250 ng/L) exposed mussels using two-dimension gel electrophoresis after a short-term exposure (7 days). Proteomes obtained were analysed using the PDQuest[TRADEMARK] software. IBU induced significant alterations in the digestive gland protein profile of exposed mussels. Hence, IBU condition induced the expression of 143 new proteins and suppressed 48 (unique in unexposed digestive gland). 45 proteins were two-fold over expressed after IBU exposure, whereas 27 proteins were down-regulated (2-fold). The development of this research will allow the identification of novel protein biomarkers related to NSAIDs contamination (particularly, IBU) in M. galloprovincialis which may be more sensitive or precise than the presently available molecular biomarkers array.