Are pharmaceuticals with evolutionary conserved molecular drug targets more potent to cause toxic effects in non-target organisms?

ABSTRACT: The ubiquitous use of pharmaceuticals has resulted in a continuous discharge into wastewater and pharmaceuticals and their metabolites are found in the environment. Due to their design towards specific drug targets, pharmaceuticals may be therapeutically active already at low environmental concentrations. Several human drug targets are evolutionary conserved in aquatic organisms, raising concerns about effects of these pharmaceuticals in non-target organisms. In this study, we hypothesized that the toxicity of a pharmaceutical towards a non-target invertebrate depends on the presence of the human drug target orthologs in this species. This was tested by assessing toxicity of pharmaceuticals with (miconazole and promethazine) and without (levonorgestrel) identified drug target orthologs in

SUBMITTER: Furuhagen S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4139295 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature