Background and Methods: High mercury (Hg) levels are a significant concern in many aquatic environments, and adverse effects of Hg exposure in fish can include altered behavior, reproduction, growth, and increased stress responses.
More...Background and Methods: High mercury (Hg) levels are a significant concern in many aquatic environments, and adverse effects of Hg exposure in fish can include altered behavior, reproduction, growth, and increased stress responses. In addition, human health concerns over Hg continue to warrant new research on its mechanisms of action. The objectives of this study were to investigate the impacts of Hg on the female largemouth bass (LMB) central nervous system transcriptome by conducting a laboratory injection experiment with 2.5 µg/g body weight in addition to sampling LMB from an environment that contains high levels of Hg (St. Mary’s River, Florida, USA). These animals were compared to LMB that inhibit river systems with lower Hg (Big Wekiva, Santa Fe and St. John’s Rivers Florida, USA). A LMB 8 x 15 K microarray was used for hypothalamic (laboratory) and whole brain (field) transcriptomics analysis. Results: Mercury in the blood of LMB collected from St Mary’s River was significantly elevated 3-fold (~ 0.1 ng Hg/ml blood) compared to LMB collected from the other three sites (~ 0.03 ng Hg/ml blood). In the hypothalamus of Hg injected LMB, there were 937 genes that showed differential expression (raw p = 0.05) but there were no probes that passed an FDR for multiple hypothesis correction. In contrast, in field collected LMB there were 2909 genes that that showed differential expression (raw p = 0.05) of which 38 were significant after correction for multiple hypothesis testing (FDR = 0.05). These included Hsp90 co-chaperone Cdc37, multicopper oxidase, mismatch repair protein Msh6, and 16 kDa heat shock protein A. Functional enrichment in whole brains of LMB collected from the field sites revealed that genes involved in the biological processes of protein folding and targeting, regulation of protein metabolic process, and protein degradation (i.e. ubiquitin cycle) were over-represented. Interestingly, gene set enrichment analysis identifed expression targets that were in common between the laboratory experiment (MeHg injected) and field collected LMB and these consisted of mainly homeobox transcription factors (PROP paired-like homeobox 1, LIM homeobox 3 and paired-like homeodomain 1 and 2). Lastly, prevalent themes emerged in the SNEA expression targets that included neuropeptide receptor signaling, steroid signaling, and structural components, such as beta-actin, integrins, and stress fibres. Conclusions: This study characterizes novel cell signaling pathways that underlie Hg toxicity in the teleostean central nervous system.
Overall design: field study with methyl mercury
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