Current Developments in Microbial Ecotoxicology of Priority, Legacy and Emerging Pollutants

Dear Colleagues,

Microbial cells can be exposed to multiple stressors, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, pesticides, heavy metals, nanomaterials and several other pollutants that enter the environment by design or by ineffective waste treatment. It is known that microorganisms are sensitive indicators of environmental pollution being largely used in ecotoxicity assessment due to their fast response to toxics, ease to culture and maintenance in the laboratory and their use does not raise ethical issues. However, most of the time, it is not easy to detect subtle, non-lethal effects resulting from low level exposure to pollutants.

The big efforts in microbial toxicity must be directed towards to the: 1) development of new tools that allow the early detection of the effects of pollutants, before being expressed by traditional endpoints like growth or viability; 2) identification of the main targets of pollutants in order to allow the elucidation of their mechanisms of action on microorganisms (of different trophic levels of the food web) and the adaptive pathways to combat polluting stress.

Thus, we are pleased to invite you to contribute with an original research paper or a review paper this Special Issue. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Toxicity effects of priority, legacy and emerging pollutants in microorganisms;
• Microbial targets/effects of toxics at different biological levels (molecular, cellular);
• New toxicity endpoints/tools;
• Development of new bioassays and bioindicators;
• Study of single and mixture of toxics;
• Toxicity studies with realistic concentrations of pollutants;
• Elucidation of the mechanisms of action underlying pollutants toxicity;
• Oxidative damage;
• Antioxidant defence mechanisms (non- and enzymatic);
• Omics approaches in toxicological studies.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Eduardo V. Soares
Dr. Manuela Dias Machado
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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