Iodine Acetonitrile as a Drinking Water Disinfectant Showed a Potential Toxic Effect on Organism

Iodine acetonitrile (IAN) is an important halogenated acetonitrile (HANs) with potential toxic effect on organism. However, no in vivo toxicological study has been reported on IAN. To quantify the toxicity of IAN, we sought to use adult Drosophila as a model for studying IAN-induced neurotoxicity. Adult Drosophila flies were exposed to 1000 mg/L, 100 mg/L, 10 mg/L, and 1 mg/L IAN or dibromoacetonitrile (DBAN, used as positive control) for 4 days to observe fly survival rate, and for 7 days to study climbing behavior. One hundred percent lethality was observed at 1000 mg/L IAN or DBAN. Kaplan‒Meier survival curves demonstrated that the overall survival of flies treated with 1 mg/L IAN was significantly shorter than that of flies treated with 1 mg/L DBAN. The climbing assay showed that the 10 mg/L IAN and 100 mg/L DBAN conditions started to reduce the climbing ability of the flies, suggesting that IAN and DBAN are neurotoxicity. In conclusion, IAN is more toxic than DBAN. It is recommended that attention be paid to toxicity, and IAN be included in the water test criteria to limit its concentration. In addition, IAN exposure was associated with changes in climbing behavior in flies, which might be associated with neurotoxicity.