Tsyusko-Unrine, Olga

Owned by UKY CCS RCD
Jun 09, 2024
3 min read




Olga Tsyusko-Unrine Research


PI: Olga Tsyusko
PhD Student: Anye Wamucho
MS Student: Stuart Lichtenberg
Undergraduate student: Summer Miller

Lab Research Activities

The focus of my research is on the toxicogenomic effects of engineered metal and metal oxide nanomaterials on plants and animals. When nanomaterials are released after the use of the nanomaterial containing products, they enter wastewater and after that majority of them partition to sewage sludge which is applied to agricultural soils in the form of biosolids. This is how nanomaterials eventually enter into terrestrial environment. These nanomaterials undergo biogeochemical transformations in the wastewater, sludge and soil. We study the toxicity and genomic responses of not only as-synthesized but also transformed (aged) nanomaterials. One of the model organism that we frequently use for our research is a nematode Caenorhabditis elegans which has fully sequenced and well-annotated genome and functional genomic tools including mutants and RNAi are readily available. In addition to the toxicity endpoints including mortality, growth, reproduction, and behavior, we are also interested in the different toxicity pathways and mechanisms of nanotoxicity after sub-chronic and continuous exposure to nanomaterials.

Mutigenerational effects of pristine and sulfidized silver nanomaterials on a model organism Caenorhabditis elegans


Description: We are studying genomic effects that can be induced by continuous exposure of C. elegans over multiple generations to silver nanomaterials. A previous multigenerational study of continuous exposure of C. elegans to silver nanomaterials resulted in increased sensitivity in terms of reproductive toxicity with increasing number of generations exposed. This suggested that Ag-NPs may cause mutations. To test this hypothesis, we use whole genome DNA sequencing approach to determine if mutations contribute to the observed multigenerational effects after C. elegans exposure over 10 generations to silver nanomaterials as well as silver ions. The sequencing data will be aligned to the reference genome and comparisons within and among treatments will be made to test whether exposure to silver pristine and transformed nanomaterials can induce direct or indirect mutations and lead to germline instability.

Personnel:

Olga Tsyusko
Anye Wamucho
Summer Miller 

Jarad P Cochran, Graduate, Added on MCC Cluster 07/21/2021 


Software:

Trimmomatic, bwa, samtools, FreeBayes, SnpEff

Transcriptomic effects of cerium oxide nanomaterials with different surface charge on a model organism C. elegans


Description: Our previous toxicity studies demonstrated that ceria oxide nanomaterials with positive surface charge are substantially more toxic than those with negative or neutral charge. In this study by using RNA Seq approach we examine changes in gene expression induced by the exposure of the ceria oxide nanomaterial with negative, positive and neutral surface charge to C. elegans.

Personnel:

Olga Tsyusko, PI
Stuart Lichtenberg

Software:

Bowtie, RSEM, EBSeq

Related Publications:

  1. Chen, C., Unrine, J.M., Judy, J.D., Lewis, R.W., Guo, J., McNear, D.H., and Tsyusko*, O.V. 2015. Toxicogenomic responses of the model legume Medicago truncatula to aged biosolids containing a mixture of nanomaterials (TiO2, Ag, and ZnO) from a pilot wastewater treatment plant. Environmental Science & Technology 49: 8759-8768.
  2. Judy, J.D., McNear, D.H., Chen, C., Lewis, R.W., Tsyusko, O.V., Bertsch, P.M., Rao, W., Stegemeier, J., Lowry, G.V., McGrath, S.P., et al. 2015. Nanomaterials in biosolids inhibit nodulation, shift microbial community composition, and result in increased metal uptake relative to bulk/dissolved metals. Environmental Science & Technology 49: 8751-8758.
  3. Starnes, D., Unrine, J., Starnes, C., Collin, B., Oostveen, E., Ma, R., Lowry, G., Bertsch, P., Tsyusko*, O., 2015 Impact of sulfidation on the bioavailability and toxicity of silver nanoparticles to Caenorhadbitis elegans. Environmental Pollution 196: 239-246.
  4. Choi Jinhee*#, Olga V. Tsyusko*#, Jason M. Unrine, Nivedita Chatterjee, Jeong-Min Ahn, Xinyu Yang, Lila Thornton, Ian T. Ryde, Daniel Starnes, and Joel N. Meyer*. 2014. A micro-sized model for the in vivo studies of nanoparticle toxicity: What has Caenorhabditis elegans taught us? Environmental Chemistry 11: 227-246.
  5. Blanche Collin*, Emily Oostveen, Olga Tsyusko, Jason Unrine*. 2014. Influence of natural organic matter and surface charge on the toxicity and bioaccumulation of functionalized ceria nanoparticles in Caenorhabditis elegans. Environmental Science and Technology 48:1280-1289.
  6. Tsyusko* Olga V., Jason M. Unrine, David Spurgeon, Daniel Starnes, Michael Tseng, Greg Joice, and Paul Bertsch. 2012. Toxicogenomic responses of the model ecoreceptor Caenorhabditis elegans to gold nanoparticles. Environmental Science and Technology 46: 4115−4124.


Current Grants

  1. Collaborative Research: NanoFARM (Fate and Effects of Agriculturally Relevant Materials). NSF. Jason Unrine (PI from UKY) and O. Tsyusko (Co-PI). 1/15/16 – 1/15/19. $257.097
  2. Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology. Renewal. NSF, U.S. EPA-NCER (subcontract from Duke University). As co-PI (Jason Unrine is PI from UK). 10/13-9/18. $650,000

Center for Computational Sciences