Project description:Many biomonitoring tools/approaches have been proposed to assess presence of endocrine active chemicals (EACs) and their biological effects in the field. Although these tools have provided valuable information, they are often limited by their specificity for certain groups of EACs and they may not account for interactions between EACs. This study aims to evaluate utility of transcriptomic and metabolomic technologies for effects monitoring in the field, and to advance integration of omic and environmental chemistry data sets. The objective was to utilize transcriptomic biomonitoring to determine the relative contribution of wastewater treatment plant effluents to biological effects observed in fish exposed to ambient waters receiving the effluents. Adult male fathead minnow were exposed to treated wastewater effluent or stream water up or downstream the plant in three different watersheds for 4 days. After exposure, the liver of 5-7 fish per treatment per site (i.e 19-21 fish from each watershed) were analyzed by microarrays. The transcriptomic profiles were compared to control fish exposed to Lake Superior filtered water.
Project description:The effect of different diets (i.e. fish oil based vs vegetable oil based) on liver transcription profiles over the life history stages (freshwater and marine phases) of cultured Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) were explored. Two groups of fish were raised from first feeding on different lipid containing diets; a) the standard 100% fish oil based diet, the other enriched with a blend of vegetable oils (75%) + fish oil (25%). Liver samples were taken from fish at four time points: two freshwater phase (as parr 36 weeks post hatch (wph); as pre-smolts, 52 wph) and two marine phase ( as post-smolts 55 wph; and as adult fish , 86 wph). A total of 96 cDNA microarray hybridisations - TRAITS / SGP Atlantic salmon 17k feature cDNA microarray - were performed ( 2 diets x 4 time points x 6 biological replicates x 2 -dye swap) using a comon pooled reference contol design.
Project description:Gymnocypris przewalskii przewalskii is distributed in Qinghai Lake, the largest inland saltwater lake in China. It is the only Cyprinidae fish in the Qinghai Lake water system and has extremely strong adaptability to the ecological environment with high salinity. G. p. przewalskii originates from the freshwater species Gymnocypris eckloni eckloni in the Yellow River and has a freshwater subspecies, Gymnocypris przewalskii ganzihonensis, distributed in the Ganzi River. Therefore, G. p. przewalskii is considered an ideal material for studying the high salt adaptation of plateau fish. Previous studies have characterized the evolutionary basis of highland adaptation in G. p. przewalskii; however, its adaptability to highly saline aquatic environments remains elusive. In the current study, we performed physiological, histological, genomic and transcriptomic analyses to investigate the phenotypical adaptation of G. p. przewalskii to a high saline environment and the underlying genomic and regulatory bases.
Project description:The protein parvalbumin (PRV)-beta (PRVB) is the primary cause behind food allergies to bony fish. Although PRVB is a well-characterized protein in many bony fishes, little is known about the hilsa, an anadromous fish with great economic importance and mostly found in Southeast Asia. In this study, we have characterized the hilsa PRV utilizing various proteomic approaches in response to two major riverine habitats and developmental stages. Unique peptide sets correspond to three different PRV isoforms were identified in hilsa muscle tissues. Label-free quantitative proteomic analysis coupled with ELISA revealed higher levels of PRVB in young fish comparative to the adult, irrespective of their riverine habitats. A comparative quantitative analysis of PRVB further demonstrated that hilsa had less PRVB than other commonly consumed freshwater fish species. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM)-based targeted proteomic approach showed the potential of PRV as a marker protein for allergen quantitation and authenticating the presence of hilsa in a complex freshwater fish mixture. Our findings collectively offer fundamental knowledge on hilsa parvalbumins for further investigation on the food safety and quality evaluation of hilsa fish.
Project description:Tissue protection from oxidative stress by antioxidants is of vital importance for cellular metabolism. The lens mostly consists of fiber cells lacking nuclei and organelles, having minimal metabolic activity; therefore, the defense of the lens tissue from the oxidative stress strongly relies on metabolites. Protein-free extracts from lenses and gills of freshwater fish, Sander lucioperca and Rutilus rutilus lacustris, were subjected to analysis using high-field 1H NMR spectroscopy and HPLC with optical and high-resolution mass spectrometric detection. It was found that the eye lenses of freshwater fish contain high concentrations of ovothiol A (OSH), i.e., one of the most powerful antioxidants exciting in nature. OSH was identified and quantified in millimolar concentrations. The concentration of OSH in the lens and gills depends on the fish genus and on the season. A possible mechanism of the reactive oxygen species deactivation in fish lenses is discussed. This work is the first to report on the presence of OSH in vertebrates. The presence of ovothiol in the fish tissue implies that it may be a significantly more common antioxidant in freshwater and marine animals than was previously thought.
Project description:Seafood fraud has become a global emerging issue, threatening food security and safety. Adulteration, substitution, dilution, and incorrect labeling of seafood products are fraudulent practices that violate consumer safety. In this context, developing sensitive, robust, and high-throughput molecular tools for food and feed authentication is becoming crucial for regulatory purposes. Analytical approaches such as proteomics mass spectrometry have shown promise in detecting incorrectly labeled products. For the application of these tools, genome information is crucial, but currently, for marine species of commercial importance, such information is unavailable. However, when combining proteomic analysis with spectra library matching, commercially important fish species were successfully identified, differentiated, and quantified in pure muscle samples and mixtures, even when genome information was scarce. This study further tested the previously developed proteomic-based spectra library-based approach was further tested to differentiate 29 fish species from the North Sea in individual samples, laboratory-prepared mixtures, and commercial samples. For authenticating libraries generated from 29 fish species, fresh muscle samples from the fish samples were matched against the reference libraries. Species of the fresh fish samples were correctly authenticated using the spectra libraries generated from the 29 fish species. Furthermore, processed commercial products containing mixtures of two or three fish species were matched against these spectra libraries to test the accuracy and robustness of this method for authentication of fish species. The results indicated that the method is suitable for the authentication of fish species from highly processed samples such as fish cakes and burgers. Spectra libraries built from 29 fish species in the North Sea can efficiently tackle current and future challenges in feed and food authentication analyses when prospecting new resources in the Arctic.
Project description:Here, we employed integrated chemical and biological analyses to determine how environmental mixtures affected biological responses in watersheds with different landuse. Adult male fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) were exposed to water from different locations within the Shenandoah River watershed (VA, USA) in 2014, 2015, and 2016. The exposure locations were chosen to capture unique landuse in surrounding watersheds, including agricultural, municipal, mixed-use, and forested sites. Gene expression profiles were measured in livers of male fish exposed for 7 days using Agilent 60K custom FHM microarrays.