Cadmium and lead toxicity assessment using Galleria mellonella with potential insect protein markers identification

Abstract

Heavy metals cadmium and lead are among the widely distributed pollutants in the envi­ronment due to the activities of the industrial, livestock, and agricultural sectors. These heavy metals can cause serious physiological and biochemical disturbances in vertebrates and inver­tebrates, which makes bioindication and the assessment of heavy metal toxicity using specific protein markers highly relevant. For insects, as the most widespread group of invertebrates in ecosystems, contamination with traces of heavy metals primarily leads to elimination. There­fore, the heightened sensitivity of insects to pollution levels is considered in laboratory tests for evaluating heavy metal toxicity. Among the existing species, Galleria mellonella was se­lected for toxicity assessment. The evaluation of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb) toxicity sug­gested the presence of specific protein markers of toxicity, namely proteins with molecular weights of 25 and 70 kDa.