Research from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station has identified a substance in oil that’s to blame for the cardiotoxicity seen in fish exposed to crude oil spills. More than a hazard for marine life exposed to oil, the contaminant this team identified is abundant in air pollution and could pose a global threat to human health.
Research from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station has identified a substance in oil that’s to blame for the cardiotoxicity seen in fish exposed to crude oil spills. More than a hazard for marine life exposed to oil, the contaminant this team identified is abundant in air pollution and could pose a global threat to human health.
The pollutant at the center of this finding, phenanthrene, is a type of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH). Due to widespread use of petroleum, PAHs are also found in land-based stormwater runoff, contaminated soil from defunct industrial sites and air pollution. PAHs have been investigated as cancer-causing chemicals for nearly a hundred years but other potential health effects have been given far less attention. The environmental health risks of phenanthrene, in particular, have received secondary consideration to other PAHs more strongly implicated in the development of cancer.
“By carefully isolating heart cells from tunas, Olympians of the sea, and using electrophysiological and confocal microscopy techniques, we recorded ionic currents and found exactly where phenanthrene blocks the heart excitation-contraction coupling pathway, which is the link between the on-off switch, or excitation, and the contraction that powers every heart beat,” said Barbara Block, professor in marine sciences. Block was senior author of the paper, published in the Jan. 31 issue of Scientific Reports.
Read more at Stanford University
Image credit: Monterey Bay Aquarium
