Elucidation of underlying mechanism of onset of stress vulnerability by environmental chemicals to explore biomakers

Our study demonstrated that a neonicotinoid pesticide, clothianidin induced various stress-related behavioral changes of mice in a novel environment in addition to increasing the number of neural cells in particular areas of brain. We also found that clothianidin evoked the transient intracellular calcium flux in human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells immediately after exposure and induced changes of the gene expression profile. Taken together, the alteration of gene expression in neural cells could be new biomarkers to detect risks of environmental chemicals.

本研究の成果は，哺乳類へ及ぼす影響に関するデータが不足している農薬のリスク評価に対し、新たな知見を提供することで毒性学および予防医学的において多大な波及効果をもたらす．また、本研究の応用により、「化学物質が高次脳機能に対して影響を及ぼすのか否か」を簡便かつ高感度に検出可能な新規リスク評価法の開発が期待でき、将来的な実験動物の使用数削減等にも繋がると考えられる．