Comment or 'Ecotoxicogenemics: Bridging the Gap between Genes and Populations'

摘要

Fedorenkova et al. (I) developed a species-sensitivity distribution (SSD) for cadmium-induced gene expression and compared it to SSDs for cadmium toxicity evaluated at the level of the no-observed effect (NOEC) and median lethality (LC50). They concluded that the SSD for gene expression is shifted about four times above the NOEC, therefore, gene expression is a less sensitive end point than the classical sublethal end points, growth and reproduction. We argue that these conclusions are premature and biased, for the following three reasons.