Application of molecular endpoints in early life stage salmonid environmental biomonitoring
Back to previous page
| Authors: | Marlatt, VL; Sherrard, R; Kennedy, CJ; Elphick, JR; Martyniuk, CJ |
| Year: | 2016 |
| Journal: | Aquatic Toxicology 173: 178-191 Article Link (DOI) |
| Title: | Application of molecular endpoints in early life stage salmonid environmental biomonitoring |
| Abstract: | Molecular endpoints can enhance existing whole animal bioassays by more fully characterizing the biological impacts of aquatic pollutants. Laboratory and field studies were used to examine the utility of adopting molecular endpoints for a well-developed in situ early life stage (eyed embryo to onset of swim-up fry) salmonid bioassay to improve diagnostic assessments of water quality in the field. Coastal cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki clarki) were exposed in the laboratory to the model metal (zinc, 40 mu g/L) and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (pyrene, 100 mu g/L) in water to examine the resulting early life stage salmonid responses. In situ field exposures and bioassays were conducted in parallel to evaluate the water quality of three urban streams in British Columbia (two sites with anthropogenic inputs and one reference site). The endpoints measured in swim-up fry included survival, deformities, growth (weight and length), vitellogenin (vtg) and metallothionein (Mt) protein levels, and hepatic gene expression (e.g., metallothioneins [mta and mtb], endocrine biomarkers [vtg and estrogen receptors, esr] and xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes [cytochrome P4501A3, cyp1a3 and glutathione transferases, gstk]). No effects were observed in the zinc treatment, however exposure of swim-up fry to pyrene resulted in decreased survival, deformities and increased estrogen receptor alpha (er1) mRNA levels. In the field exposures, xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes (cyp1a3, gstk) and zinc transporter (zntBigM103) mRNA were significantly increased in swim-up fry deployed at the sites with more anthropogenic inputs compared to the reference site. Cluster analysis revealed that gene expression profiles in individuals from the streams receiving anthropogenic inputs were more similar to each other than to the reference site. Collectively, the results obtained in this study suggest that molecular endpoints may be useful, and potentially more sensitive, indicators of site-specific contamination in real-world, complex exposure scenarios in addition to whole body morphometric and physiological measures. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
Please send suggestions for improving this publication database to
sass-support@sfu.ca.
Departmental members may update their publication list.