New strategies in ecotoxicology and toxicogenomics

Abstract

New methodologies are being designed to describe and study the toxicity profiles of environmental compartments as well as their impacts on their biotic communities. Classical toxicology is enriched with suborganismic and subcellular techniques, which allow a detailed knowledge of the effects and mechanisms of action of the toxicants in the ecosystemic compartments. These advances have been achieved with contributions from the Omic Sciences, which allowed a more detailed evaluation of the structural and functional changes provoked by the toxics. Thus, toxicogenomics was structured, which with the help of bioinformatics, is recognised as complementary to the information provided by toxicology. More recently, toxicogenomics was associated with ecotoxicology, contributing to a more detailed understanding and interpretation of the adverse environmental impacts of anthropic origin in the context of a new subdiscipline (ecotoxicogenomics). These advances will also contribute to the design of new environmental regulatory protocols.