Project description:We investigated ecotoxicological effects and toxicogenomic responses in fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) exposed to an environmentally-relevant concentration (0.83 mg/L) of the munitions compound cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) in one year and multi-generational assays. In the one year assay, RDX effects were discerned by comparing breeding groups reared in control or RDX-exposure conditions for one year. RDX had no detectable effect on gonad-somatic index, or condition factor in females assayed at 1 day and at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, however the liver-somatic index was significantly increased versus controls only at the 12 month time point. RDX had no effect on live-prey capture rates at all time points assayed and no significant impacts on egg production, fertilization or hatch success in the 1-year exposure trial. Genomic analyses indicated that RDX exposure caused limited differential expression of transcripts within time points and no functional conservation of effects indicative of RDX exposure among time points for either brain or liver tissues in the one year exposure. In the multi-generational assay, the effects of acute (96h) exposure to RDX were compared in fish reared to the F2 generation in either control or RDX-exposure conditions. The RDX-reared fish were not observed to have appreciably enhanced RDX tolerance versus the control-reared fish. However, significant differences in gene expression were observed among the control and RDX-reared fish related to neuro-excitatory glutamate metabolism, sensory signaling and processes in neurological development. In total, our results indicate that exposure to an RDX concentration approximating maximum levels observed in the field (0.83 mg/L) caused limited impacts in fathead minnows in a one year exposure, however caused altered expression in genes involved in neural function in a multi-generational exposure. P. promelas larvae produced in the original one year exposure were collected and grown out to sexual maturity while being maintained in the same treatment (control or 0.83 mg/L RDX) as their respective F0 parental generation. Once the fish reached sexual maturity, they were placed into eight experimental units for both control and RDX treatment consisting of four females and two males and were maintained with the same experimental conditions as the F0 generation. To determine if the chronic, multi-generational exposure to RDX resulted in any change in sensitivity to RDX, 90 dph progeny (F2 or sub-adults) of the control and RDX-exposed F1 generation were subjected to a challenge experiment where the fish were exposed to RDX at 5 mg/L.

Project description:We investigated ecotoxicological effects and toxicogenomic responses in fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) exposed to an environmentally-relevant concentration (0.83 mg/L) of the munitions compound cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) in one year and multi-generational assays. In the one year assay, RDX effects were discerned by comparing breeding groups reared in control or RDX-exposure conditions for one year. RDX had no detectable effect on gonad-somatic index, or condition factor in females assayed at 1 day and at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, however the liver-somatic index was significantly increased versus controls only at the 12 month time point. RDX had no effect on live-prey capture rates at all time points assayed and no significant impacts on egg production, fertilization or hatch success in the 1-year exposure trial. Genomic analyses indicated that RDX exposure caused limited differential expression of transcripts within time points and no functional conservation of effects indicative of RDX exposure among time points for either brain or liver tissues in the one year exposure. In the multi-generational assay, the effects of acute (96h) exposure to RDX were compared in fish reared to the F2 generation in either control or RDX-exposure conditions. The RDX-reared fish were not observed to have appreciably enhanced RDX tolerance versus the control-reared fish. However, significant differences in gene expression were observed among the control and RDX-reared fish related to neuro-excitatory glutamate metabolism, sensory signaling and processes in neurological development. In total, our results indicate that exposure to an RDX concentration approximating maximum levels observed in the field (0.83 mg/L) caused limited impacts in fathead minnows in a one year exposure, however caused altered expression in genes involved in neural function in a multi-generational exposure. Adult fathead minnows were exposed to 0.83 mg/L (0.15 mg/L standard deviation) in experimental units including 2 male and 4 fish. Five replicate males were randomly sampled with replacement from each of 8 control and 8 RDX-exposed experimental units at 1d, 1mo, 3mo, 6mo, 9mo and 12mo sampling periods. Brain tissue was investigated for differential expression in response to RDX exposure. Data were analyzed in 3 separate investigations. First, the Reference vs Reference data were analysed to determine an empirical false positive detection rate. Next, in order to meet milestones set up by our upper management, we were forced to generate results prior to the end of the bioassay. Therefore, we investigated gene expression among Control and RDX-exposed fish in the 1 day - 6 month sampling periods. Investigation of gene expression among the control and RDX-exposed fish for the 9 month and 12 month time periods were investigated separately.

Project description:Paper Abstract. Extrapolating toxicological sensitivity information across species can require the use of highly conservative safety factors as prescribed by ecological risk assessment protocols. The objective of our study was to use multipule factors to understand the dynamics of stress responses by comparing ecotoxicological, developmental, and genomic data to quantitatively determine the relative sensitivity of two common model aquatic vertebrates to assess the potential for developing refined safety factors among species. Larval (3-d old) zebrafish (Danio rerio) and fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) were concurrently exposed in 96-h static exposures to the widely-used military energetic compound cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX). Endpoints assessed included mortality, incidence of vertebral deformities, swimming behavior, and differential gene (transcript) expression. Analytically verified treatment concentrations ranged from 0.9 to 27.7 mg/L RDX. While RDX concentrations prepared for exposures included 0, 0.9, 1.8, 3.5, 7.5, 15.0, and 30.0 mg/L, analytically verified treatment concentrations were 0, 0.88, 1.75, 3.46, 6.96, 13.79, and 27.7 mg/L, respectively. Changes in prepared RDX concentrations and analytically verified treatment concentrations are a result of chemical breakdown, a well known characteristic of RDX Our results indicated a higher sensitivity to RDX in P. promelas than in D. rerio in both mortality (LOECs 13.79 and 27.7 mg/L, respectively) and vertebral deformity (LOECs 13.79 and >13.79, respectively) endpoints. Swimming behavior was assessed in 10 min behavioral trials using Noldus EthoVision® digital tracking software. Swimming behavior trials indicated non-significant trends of decreased velocity, distance moved, and increased meander (change in direction per cm traveled) for P. promelas. No such trends were apparent in D. rerio swimming behavior. A comprehensive genomic analysis is in progress to determine the genes, gene ontology elements, metabolic pathways and metabolic networks affected in common among species in the RDX exposure. Taken as a whole, the ecotoxicological, developmental and genomic results will provide valuable insights into the similarity in response among these fish species to RDX. Three-day-old fathead minnow (FHM, Pimephales promelas) or Zebrafish (ZF, Danio rerio) fry were exposed to either control water or one of six concentrations of RDX (0.9, 1.9, 3.8, 7.5, 15, or 27.7 mg/L) in 96-h exposures. However, microarray analysis was only performed on FHM exposed to 0, 0.9, 1.9, 7.5, or 15 mg/L RDX and ZF exposed to 0, 0.9, 1.9, 3.8, 7.5, or 15 mg/L RDX due to insufficient tissue for microarray analysis due to animal death at the other RDX concentrations. The experimental design was based on the U.S. EPA (2002) acute testing method for P. promelas, test method 2000.0 and included four replicates per treatment with ten fish per replicate. Whole fish (10 fish per replicate) were investigated for differential expression in response to RDX exposure.

Project description:We investigated ecotoxicological effects and toxicogenomic responses in fathead minnows (Pimephales promelas) exposed to an environmentally-relevant concentration (0.83 mg/L) of the munitions compound cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) in one year and multi-generational assays. In the one year assay, RDX effects were discerned by comparing breeding groups reared in control or RDX-exposure conditions for one year. RDX had no detectable effect on gonad-somatic index, or condition factor in females assayed at 1 day and at 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, however the liver-somatic index was significantly increased versus controls only at the 12 month time point. RDX had no effect on live-prey capture rates at all time points assayed and no significant impacts on egg production, fertilization or hatch success in the 1-year exposure trial. Genomic analyses indicated that RDX exposure caused limited differential expression of transcripts within time points and no functional conservation of effects indicative of RDX exposure among time points for either brain or liver tissues in the one year exposure. In the multi-generational assay, the effects of acute (96h) exposure to RDX were compared in fish reared to the F2 generation in either control or RDX-exposure conditions. The RDX-reared fish were not observed to have appreciably enhanced RDX tolerance versus the control-reared fish. However, significant differences in gene expression were observed among the control and RDX-reared fish related to neuro-excitatory glutamate metabolism, sensory signaling and processes in neurological development. In total, our results indicate that exposure to an RDX concentration approximating maximum levels observed in the field (0.83 mg/L) caused limited impacts in fathead minnows in a one year exposure, however caused altered expression in genes involved in neural function in a multi-generational exposure. Adult fathead minnows were exposed to 0.83 mg/L (0.15 mg/L standard deviation) in experimental units including 2 male and 4 fish. Five replicate males were randomly sampled with replacement from each of 8 control and 8 RDX-exposed experimental units at 1d, 1mo, 3mo, 6mo, 9mo and 12mo sampling periods. Liver tissue was investigated for differential expression in response to RDX exposure.

Project description:Motivation: Monitoring, assessment and prediction of environmental risks that chemicals pose demand rapid and accurate diagnostic assays. A variety of toxicological effects have been associated with explosive compounds TNT and RDX. One important goal of microarray experiments is to discover novel biomarkers for toxicity evaluation. We have developed an earthworm microarray containing 15,208 unique oligo probes. Our objective was to identify biomarker genes that can separate earthworm samples into three groups: control, TNT-treated, and RDX-treated. Results: We developed a discriminant analysis and cluster (DAC) pipeline to analyze a 248-array dataset. First, a total of 869 significantly changed genes in response to TNT or RDX exposure were inferred by class comparison statistical algorithms. Then, nine decision tree-based algorithms were applied to generate classification rules and a set of 286 classifier genes. These classifier genes were ranked by their overall weight of significance, and were used to build support vector machines (SVMs). An SVM containing all 286 classifier genes had the highest classification accuracy (91.5%). An unsupervised clustering method was used to cluster the worm samples and results show that the use of the top 100 classifier genes can assign the largest number of worm samples into the three reference clusters obtained by using all the 14,188 filtered genes, suggesting that these top-ranked genes may be potential candidates for biomarkers. This study demonstrates that the DAC pipeline can be used to identify a small set of biomarker genes from high dimensional datasets and generate a reliable SVM classification model for multiple classes. Adult earthworms (E. fetida) were exposed in soil spiked with TNT (0, 6, 12, 24, 48, or 96 mg/kg) or RDX (8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 mg/kg) for 0, 4 or 14 days. The 4-day treatment was repeated with RDX concentration being 2, 4, 8, 16 or 32 mg/kg soil. Each treatment originally had 10 replicate worms with 8-10 survivors at the end of exposure. Total RNA was isolated from the surviving worms. A total of 248 worm RNA samples were hybridized to a custom-designed oligo array using Agilentâs one-color Low RNA Input Linear Amplification Kit. The array contains 15,208 non-redundant 60-mer probes, each targeting a unique E. fetida transcript (Gong et al. 2009). After hybridization and scanning, gene expression data were acquired using Agilentâs Feature Extraction Software (v.9.1.3). The 248-array dataset consists of three worm groups: 32 untreated controls, 96 TNT-treated, and 120 RDX-treated.

Project description:Production, usage and disposal of the munitions constituent (MC) cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) has led to environmental releases on military facilities. The chemical attributes of RDX are conducive for leaching to surface water which may put aquatic organisms at risk of exposure. Because RDX has been observed to cause aberrant neuromuscular effects across a wide range of animal phyla, we assessed the effects of RDX on central nervous system (CNS) function in the representative aquatic ecotoxicological model species, fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). A brain-tissue based cDNA library enriched for transcripts differentially expressed in response to RDX exposure was developed for fathead minnow and was transitioned to custom cDNA-based microarrays. All 4,128 cDNAs were sequenced, quality filtered and assembled yielding 3,018 unique sequences and 945 significant blastx matches (E ≤ 10-5). Bioassays were conducted exposing fathead minnows to RDX at 0.625, 1.25, 2.5, 5, 10 mg/L or an acetone-spike control for 10d. Overt toxicity of RDX in fathead minnow occurred only at the highest exposure concentration resulting in 50% mortality. Conversely, Bayesian analysis of microarray data indicated significant changes in transcript expression in fathead minnow brain tissue at RDX concentrations as low as 0.625 mg/L. In total, 154 microarray targets representing 44 unique transcript identities were differentially expressed in RDX exposures, the majority of which were validated by RT-qPCR. Investigation of molecular pathways, gene ontology and individual gene functions indicated that RDX exposures affected metabolic processes involved in: oxygen transport, neurological function, calcium binding / signaling, energy metabolism, cell cycle / cell proliferation, oxidative stress and ubiquitination. In total, our study indicated that RDX exposure affected molecular processes critical to CNS function in fathead minnow. 10 Day RDX Exposure, Brain Tissue Investigation: Sub-adult fathead minnows were exposed to RDX in a 10d dose-series experiment (0.625, 1.25, 2.5, 5.0, or 10 mg/L RDX) which included an acetone-spike control (1% acetone). Each experimental treatment included 8 replicate fish (48 total fish) and endpoints included mortality, total weight and neurotoxicogenomics. The 1.25mg/L dose was not included in the microarray experiment. Please see attached PDF file for detailed 'Balanced, Interwoven Loop Design'.

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Genomic investigation of year long and multi-generational exposures of fathead minnow to the munitions compound RDX

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