DMSO induces drastic changes in human cellular processes and epigenetic landscape in vitro.

Though clinical trials for medical applications of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) reported toxicity in the 1960s, later, the FDA classified DMSO in the safest solvent category. DMSO became widely used in many biomedical fields and biological effects were overlooked. Meanwhile, biomedical science has evolved towards sensitive high-throughput techniques and new research areas, including epigenomics and microRNAs. Considering its wide use, especially for cryopreservation and in vitro assays, we evaluated biological effect of DMSO using these technological innovations. We exposed 3D cardiac and hepatic microtissues to medium with or without 0.1% DMSO and analyzed the transcriptome, proteome and DNA methylation profiles. In both tissue types, transcriptome analysis detected >2000 differentially expressed genes affecting similar biological processes, thereby indicating consistent cross-organ actions of DMSO. Furthermore, microRNA analysis revealed large-scale deregulations of cardiac microRNAs and smaller, though still massive, effects in hepatic microtissues. Genome-wide methylation patterns also revealed tissue-specificity. While hepatic microtissues demonstrated non-significant changes, findings from cardiac microtissues suggested disruption of DNA methylation mechanisms leading to genome-wide changes. The extreme changes in microRNAs and alterations in the epigenetic landscape indicate that DMSO is not inert. Its use should be reconsidered, especially for cryopreservation of embryos and oocytes, since it may impact embryonic development.

Soil restoration with organic amendments: linking cellular functionality and ecosystem processes.

A hot topic in recent decades, the application of organic amendments to arid-degraded soils has been shown to benefit microbially-mediated processes. However, despite the importance of soils for global sustainability, a gap has not been addressed yet in soil science: is there any connection between ecosystem-community processes, cellular functionality, and microbial lifestyles (i.e. oligotrophy-copiotrophy) in restored soils? Together with classical ecosystem indicators (fatty-acids, extracellular-enzyme activities, basal respiration), state-of-the-art metaproteomics was applied to fill this gap in a model-restoration experiment initiated 10-years ago by the addition of sewage-sludge and compost. Organic amendment strongly impacted ecosystem processes. Furthermore, the type of material used induced differences in the cellular functionalities through variations in the percentages of proteins involved in translation, transcription, energy production and C-fixation. We conclude that the long-term impact of organic restoration goes beyond ecosystem processes and affects cellular functionalities and phyla-lifestyles coupled with differences in microbial-community structures.