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. 2022 Sep 19;27(18):6123.
doi: 10.3390/molecules27186123.

Assessment of the Effects of Chitosan, Chitooligosaccharides and Their Derivatives on Lemna minor

Bianca-Vanesa Boros  1   2 , Daniela Dascalu  1   2 , Vasile Ostafe  1   2 , Adriana Isvoran  1   2
Affiliations

Assessment of the Effects of Chitosan, Chitooligosaccharides and Their Derivatives on Lemna minor

Bianca-Vanesa Boros et al. Molecules. .

Abstract

Chitosan, chitooligosaccharides and their derivatives’ production and use in many fields may result in their release to the environment, possibly affecting aquatic organisms. Both an experimental and a computational approach were considered for evaluating the effects of these compounds on Lemna minor. Based on the determined EC50 values against L. minor, only D-glucosamine hydrochloride (EC50 = 11.55 mg/L) was considered as “slightly toxic” for aquatic environments, while all the other investigated compounds, having EC50 > 100 mg/L, were considered as “practically non-toxic”. The results obtained in the experimental approach were in good agreement with the predictions obtained using the admetSAR2.0 computational tool, revealing that the investigated compounds were not considered toxic for crustacean, fish and Tetrahymena pyriformis aquatic microorganisms. The ADMETLab2.0 computational tool predicted the values of IGC50 for Tetrahymena pyriformis and the LC50 for fathead minnow and Daphnia magna, with the lowest values of these parameters being revealed by totally acetylated chitooligosaccharides in correlation with their lowest solubility. The effects of the chitooligosaccharides and chitosan on L. minor decreased with increased molecular weight, increased with the degree of deacetylation and were reliant on acetylation patterns. Furthermore, the solubility mainly influenced the effects on the aqueous environment, with a higher solubility conducted to lower toxicity.

Keywords: Lemna minor; aqueous environment; chitooligosaccharides; chitosan; ecotoxicity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dose–response curve of the number of fronds of Lemna minor and the concentrations of (a) D-glucosamine hydrochloride (G), (b) N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (NAG), (c) chitobiose dihydrochloride (2G) and (d) N-carboxymethyl chitosan (N-CMChi). Symbols with same letter do not present statistically significant differences (Supplementary Tables S1–S3).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Dose–response curve of the number of fronds and the concentrations of (a) chitosan with low molecular weight (ChiS), (b) chitosan with medium molecular weight (ChiM), (c) chitosan with high molecular weight (ChiL) and (d) chitosan with a deacetylation degree of approximately 50% (Chi50). Symbols with same letter do not present statistically significant differences (Supplementary Tables S4 and S5).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of EC50 values of tested chitooligosaccharides, chitosan and their derivatives.
Figure 4
Figure 4
48 h Tetrahymena pyriformis IGC50 predicted values for chitooligosaccharides and their derivatives using ADMETLab2.0. The meaning of acronyms on the OX axe are explained in Table in Section 3.2.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The 96 h fathead minnow LC50 predicted values for chitooligosaccharides and their derivatives using ADMETLab2.0. The meaning of acronyms on the OX axe is explained in Table in Section 3.2.
Figure 6
Figure 6
48 h Daphnia magna LC50 predicted values for chitooligosaccharides and their derivatives using ADMETLab2.0. The meaning of acronyms on the OX axe are explained in Table in Section 3.2.
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