Accumulation of heat shock proteins for evaluating biological damage due to chronic exposure of an organism to sublethal levels of pollutants

Abstract

Method of detecting chronic exposure of an organism to a pollutant, and for evaluating biological damage due to chronic exposure to sublethal levels of pollutants and kits for carrying out the method are disclosed. The methods comprise: (a) sampling at least one organism in order to determine whether it has been chronically exposed to a sublethal concentration of one or more pollutants in its environment, under sampling conditions that do not induce any additional heat shock protein (hsp) response in the organism; (b) obtaining a sample of cells or secretions of said organism, suspected of having elevated levels of heat shock proteins and solubilizing the heat shock proteins in the sample; and (c) measuring the concentration of a heat shock protein selected from hsp 70, hsp 60 and ubiquitin, in said sample. The invention also provides methods for evaluating biological damage due to chronic exposure of the organism by the above method and then comparing the measured concentration of hsp to a predetermined standard calibration curve which correlates hsp concentration with physiological impairment of growth or reproductive processes, and kits for carrying out the methods.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.