文献类型： 外文期刊

作者： Lu, Xing ¹ ; Zhang, Lang ² ; Lin, Gen-Mei ³ ; Lu, Jian-Guo ³ ; Cui, Zong-Bin ¹ ;

作者机构： 1.Guangdong Acad Sci, Inst Microbiol, Guangdong Prov Key Lab Microbial Culture Collect &, State Key Lab Appl Microbiol Southern China, Guangzhou 510070, Peoples R China

2.Chinese Acad Fishery Sci, Yangtze River Fisheries Res Inst, Wuhan 430223, Peoples R China

3.Sun Yat Sen Univ, Sch Marine Sci, Zhuhai 519082, Peoples R China

4.Southern Marine Sci & Engn Guangdong Lab Zhuhai, Zhuhai 519080, Peoples R China

关键词： zebrafish; heavy metals; acute toxicity; RNA-seq; differential gene expression

期刊名称：ANIMALS （ 影响因子：2.7； 五年影响因子：3.2 ）

ISSN： 2076-2615

年卷期： 2024 年 14 卷 19 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： Simple Summary Lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) are two of the major heavy metals of antiquity and have gained considerable importance as potent pollutants in aquatic environments. It is known that fish embryos or larvae are more sensitive to the monitoring of heavy metal contamination. Thus, RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis based on physiological changes in larval zebrafish was conducted to investigate the toxic mechanisms of lead or mercury in fish during early life stages. Our results showed that acute lead exposure significantly decreased survival but increased the malformation rates of developing zebrafish from 48 hpf to 120 hpf. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that lead-triggered biological processes included cellular process, metabolic process, biological regulation, and response to stimulus. The most enriched lead-regulated pathways included cytochrome P450, glutathione metabolism, and lipid metabolism. Moreover, a series of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by both mercury and lead treatment, which could be useful for searching potential molecular markers against the evaluation of heavy metals contamination.Abstract This study was first conducted to investigate the effects of acute lead exposure on developing zebrafish embryos or larvae from 24 to 120 h post-fertilization (hpf). Our data showed that treatment with 50-200 mu M lead significantly affected larval survivability and morphology compared to the respective control. Second, we chose 120 hpf larvae treated with 12.5 mu M lead for RNA sequencing due to its exposure level being sufficient to produce toxic effects with minimum death and lead bioaccumulation in developing zebrafish. A total of 137.45 million raw reads were obtained, and more than 86% of clean data were mapped to the zebrafish reference genome. Differential expression profiles generated 116 up- and 34 down-regulated genes upon lead exposure. The most enriched GO terms for representative DEGs were ion transport and lipid metabolism. Third, a comparison with the dataset of mercury-regulated gene expression identified 94 genes (64 up-regulated and 30 down-regulated) for exposure specific to lead, as well as 422 genes (338 up-regulated and 84 down-regulated) for exposure specific to mercury. In addition, 56 genes were co-regulated by micromolar mercury and lead treatment, and the expression of thirteen genes, including mt2, ctssb.1, prdx1, txn, sqrdl, tmprss13a, socs3a, trpv6, abcb6a, gsr, hbz, fads2, and zgc:92590 were validated by qRT-PCR. These genes were mainly associated with metal ion binding, proteolysis, antioxidant activity, signal transduction, calcium ion or oxygen transport, the fatty acid biosynthetic process, and protein metabolism. Taken together, these findings help better understand the genome-wide responses of developing zebrafish to lead or mercury and provide potential biomarkers for acute exposure to toxic metals.