Electron microscopy evidence of gadolinium toxicity being mediated through cytoplasmic membrane dysregulation
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Past functional toxicogenomic studies have indicated that genes relevant to membrane lipid synthesis are important for tolerance to the lanthanides. Moreover, previously reported imaging of patient's brains following administration of gadolinium-based contrast agents shows gadolinium lining the vessels of the brain. Taken together, these findings suggest the disruption of cytoplasmic membrane integrity as a mechanism by which lanthanides induce cytotoxicity. In the presented work we used scanning transmission electron microscopy and spatially resolved elemental spectroscopy to image the morphology and composition of gadolinium, europium, and samarium precipitates that formed on the outside of yeast cell membranes. In no sample did we find that the lanthanide contaminant had crossed the cell membrane, even in experiments using yeast mutants with disrupted genes for sphingolipid synthesis-the primary lipids found in yeast cytoplasmic membranes. Rather, we have evidence that lanthanides are co-located with phosphorus outside the yeast cells. These results lead us to hypothesize that the lanthanides scavenge or otherwise form complexes with phosphorus from the sphingophospholipid head groups in the cellular membrane, thereby compromising the structure or function of the membrane, and gaining the ability to disrupt membrane function without entering the cell.
Source: Metallomics
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Toxic Substances Control, National Institutes of Health, Office of Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Florida, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Basic Energy Sciences, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Awards: G1079818582, G1143651532, G1286236842, G1286251239, G2795275917, G30714459, G3083819904, G382641700, G4119534169, G419881185, G42916606, G4501827968, G4950536974, G498139845, ALIGNING DOSIMETRY AND BIOMARKERS OF LUNG INJURY WITH PROPHYLAXIS AND MITIGATION OF DAMAGE FROM RADIONUCLIDES AND METALS, G5850682332, G650090426, G7354628648, Multi-Scale Evaluation and Mitigation of Toxicities Following Internal Radionuclide Contamination, G969889393
OpenAlex ID: W4402816249