The research report of The National Institute of Nutrition and Seafood Research (NIFES) will be present at the fifteenth ESTIV 2008 conference in Stockholm, Sweden, the 25th of September. The conference is for scientists from all over the world who study the biological effects of environmental pollutants. It is said the work carried out in two cell models, one cell model based on liver cells from Atlantic salmon, and one model based on embryonic stem cells from Atlantic cod.
According to the research studying cells exposed to nutrients and toxic substances enable researchers to evaluate the effect of environmental pollutants and nutrients on fish embryos and adult fish. It is common to use liver cells as a model system due to the liver’s high metabolic activity and that it is the major detoxifying organ in the body.
The study revealed that liver cells from Atlantic salmon were exposed to the perfluorinated compound, PFOS. PFOS is commonly used in materials which are water repellent, and the compounds accumulate both in the environment and in organisms ranging from algae to humans. The experiment was done by Liv Softeland and Pal Olsvik, in which liver cells from Atlantic salmon was exposed to a mixture of different persistent organic pollutants.
Elisabeth Holen and Kaja Skjærven will present a new method developed to grow embryonic stem cells, which are unspecialised cells which can divide many times, and give rise to specialised cells through differentiation. Pedro Araujo has developed a new method for determining eicosanoids (such as prostaglandin E2 (PGE2)) from liver cells isolated from rat and head kidney cells isolated from Atlantic salmon and Atlantic cod.
