Environmental Science & Technology

The Kuroshio regulates the air-sea exchange of PCBs

Study can help to assess effectiveness of Minamata Convention on Mercury

Knowledge of the detailed accumulation profiles of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and POPs-like contaminants in wild animals is critical for ecological risk assessment. Comprehensive screening of organohalogen compounds in the livers of wild birds from Osaka, Japan using two-dimensional gas chromatography in combination with high resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC–HRToFMS) revealed specific accumulation of typically unmonitored POPs-like compounds in raptors.

Using neurons directly reprogrammed from tissues of stranded whales to assess brain health A research team of the Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES) of Ehime University, Japan succeeded for the first time in direct reprogramming of whale somatic cells to neuronal cells, and conducted a neurotoxicity test using these cells. Exposure to a metabolite (4′OH-CB72) of polychlorinated biphenyls, ubiquitous environmental pollutants, caused apoptosis in the reprogrammed neurons. Transcriptome analysis of 4′OH-CB72-treated whale neurons showed altered expressions of genes associated with oxidative phosphorylation, chromatin degradation, axonal transport, and neurodegenerative diseases.