Name: Sören Meyer
Diploma / M.Sc degree: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany
(November 2010)

PhD Project: Toxicological characterisation of arsenolipids and their metabolites using state of the art in vitro techniques

Abstract of Research Project

Inorganic arsenic is classified as human carcinogen and humans are exposed to it mainly by food and drinking water. Recently the EFSA has concluded that a risk to the human health in context to the presence of inorganic arsenic in food is likely.

In addition to inorganic arsenic humans are exposed to organic arsenic compounds via marine food. To these belong arsenobetaine and arsenolipids, which can be found especially in fatty fish species. Arsenobetaine is not metabolised in humans and thus discussed to be harmless for humans. On the contrary, first in vivo metabolism studies of arsenolipids demonstrated a variety of metabolites with overlaps to the metabolite spectrum of inorganic arsenic.

About the toxicity of arsenolipids so far nothing is known, therefore in my doctoral thesis I will study the toxicity, cellular bioavailability and biotransformation of this compounds and their metabolites using state of the art in vitro techniques. More precisely I would like to study cellular toxicity, direct and indirect genotoxicity and their transfer across an intestinal barrier model to get a better understanding of their toxicological modes of action.

These studies will be an important basis for an urgently needed risk assessment of arsenolipids in marine food.



Publications

S. Meyer, M. Matissek, S. M. Müller, M. S. Taleshi, F. Ebert, K. A. Francesconi, T. Schwerdtle
In vitro toxicological characterisation of three arsenic-containing hydrocarbons
Metallomics 6 (2014), 1023-1033.

J. Bornhorst, S. Chakraborty, S. Meyer, H. Lohren, S. G. Brinkhaus, A. L. Knight, K. A. Caldwell, G. A. Caldwell, U. Karst, T. Schwerdtle, A. Bowman, M. Aschner
The effects of pdr1, djr1.1 and pink1 loss in manganese-induced toxicity and the role of α-synuclein in C. elegans
Metallomics 6 (2014), 476-490.