Impact of Arsenic on Reproductive Health

Arsenic is ubiquitously present in the earth’s crust. Population across the world gets exposed to arsenic mainly through drinking water, responsible for causing diseases like hypertension, skin pigmentation, skin lesion, cardiovascular diseases, and even cancer. However, arsenic also disturbs the male and female hormone balance in the body, thus, interfering with the process of spermatogenesis and oogenesis. This eventually leads to infertility in the reproductive system irrespective of gender. Cohort studies have revealed that when pregnant women get exposed to arsenic-contaminated water; it leads to abortion, preterm birth, and stillbirth. Thus, arsenic contamination from any source has a devastating effect on the life of organisms and also on the environment.

Divergent molecular profile of PIK3CA gene in arsenic-associated bladder carcinoma

The activation of PIK3CA in bladder carcinoma (BlCa) with its recurrent mutations in exon 9 and 20 were well reported. But the association of arsenic on the activation of the pathway is not well elucidated. Therefore, we aimed to analyse the effect of arsenic on the genetic (copy number variation/mutation) and expression profiles of PIK3CA in primary BlCa samples. Infrequent amplification (16%) of the PIK3CA locus was observed, with higher frequency among the arsenic-high (AsH) than arsenic-low (AsL) samples. Frequent (54%) tumour-specific mutations in exon 9 and 20 of PIK3CA were observed in the BlCa samples with prevalent (47%) C>T transition mutations. Exon 9 and 20 harboured 48% and 73% of the total mutations, respectively, with 37% in E542K/E545K and 25% of the mutation in H1047Y/R. Though mutation frequency in AsH and AsL was found to be comparable, we observed some arsenic-specific mutation at c.1633G>A, c.1634A>C (E545K) and c.2985C>T and c.3130G>T mutations, as well as prevalent transverse mutations of A>C and G>T in AsH group. Furthermore, 73% of the BlCa samples showed overexpression (mRNA/protein) of PIK3CA with genetic alterations (amplification/mutation), significantly (P = 0.01) higher in AsH group. However, 36% of the samples showed overexpressed PIK3CA, independent of mutation or amplification, signifying a transcriptional upregulation of PIK3CA gene. Therefore, the expression status of NFκB, a transcription factor of PIK3CA, was assessed and found to be significantly correlated with the overexpression of PIK3CA (mRNA/protein) in AsH group. Similarly, the expression pattern of pAKT1 (Thr 308) was also found to be significantly correlated with PIK3CA overexpression. Finally, AsH patients with the overexpression of PIK3CA or NFκB had the worst overall survival, signifying a strong impact of arsenic on this pathway and outcome of the patients. Thus, our study showed that the arsenic-associated differential molecular profile of PIK3CA/AKT1/NFkB in BlCa has an important role in the molecular pathogenesis of the disease.

Examination of Impact of Arsenic Stress on Soil Microbes

The research was performed at Botany department, Nusrat Jahan College Rabwah Pakistan to screen stress tolerance level of soil microbes (pseudomonas and penicillium) taken from NARC (National Agricultural Research Centre) Pakistan against different levels of sodium arsenite stress (1 mg/L to 10 mg/L). The research was based on completely randomized design. Three drops were applied to microbes grown on CLED (cysteine-, lactose-, and electrolyte-deficient) media to determine zone of inhibition through disk, well and spread method, while control group was without sodium arsenite application. After application of various levels of arsenic stress organisms were incubated for 24 h at 37°C. After incubation, zones of inhibition were measured. Our study has shown that both micobes cannot overcome higher levels of arsenic stress because in higher stress petriplates, increased inhibitory zones were observed.