Markers of Acute Toxicity in Pancreatic Beta-Cells Exposed to Lethal Doses of the Organochlorine Pollutant DDT Determined by a Proteomic Approach

Many compounds have the potential to harm pancreatic beta-cells; organochlorine pollutants belong to those compounds. In this work, we aimed to find markers of acute toxicity of p,p‘-DDT among proteins expressed in human pancreatic beta-cells NES2Y and visible at 2-D electrophoresis. We exposed NES2Y cells to a lethal dose of p,p‘-DDT (150 μM) for 24 hours and 30 hours and determined changes in protein expression using 2-D electrophoresis. We also stained the cells exposed to p,p‘-DDT to visualize the altered phenotype of the exposed cells. Among proteins with changed expression, we identified proteins involved in ER stress (GRP78, and endoplasmin), mitochondrial proteins (GRP75, ECHM, IDH3A, NDUS1, and NDUS3), proteins with potential to change the cell morphology (EFHD2, TCPA, NDRG1, and ezrin), and some other proteins (HNRPF, HNRH1, K2C8, vimentin, PBDC1, EF2, PCNA, biliverdin reductase, G3BP1, FRIL, and HSP27). These proteins can be used as markers of acute DDT toxicity.