Project description:Current aquatic chemical testing guidelines recognise that solvents can potentially interfere with the organism or environmental conditions of aquatic ecotoxicity tests and therefore recommend concentration limits for their use. These recommendations are based on evidence of adverse solvent effects in apical level tests. The growing importance of sub-apical and chronic endpoints in future test strategies, however, suggests the limits may need re-assessment. To address this concern, microarrays were used to determine the effects of organic solvents, dimethylformamide (DMF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), upon the transcriptome of zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. Embryos were exposed for 48 h to 0.025 and 0.1 ml/L DMF or DMSO. Effects on survival and development after 24 and 48 h were assessed microscopically with no effects on mortality or morphology. However, analysis of 48-h embryonic RNA revealed large numbers of differentially expressed genes for both solvent at both concentrations. The enrichment of differentially expressed genes was found for metabolic, development and other key biological processes, some of which could be linked to observed morphological effects at higher solvent concentrations. These findings emphasise the need to remove or lower as far as possible, the concentrations of solvent carriers in ecotoxicology tests. Balanced loop design consisting of five separate conditions - two exposure concentrations for each of the two solvents and a control treatment - using four replicates for each condition all of which were dye swapped, resulting in a total of twenty independant samples on twenty arrays.
Project description:Current aquatic chemical testing guidelines recognise that solvents can potentially interfere with the organism or environmental conditions of aquatic ecotoxicity tests and therefore recommend concentration limits for their use. These recommendations are based on evidence of adverse solvent effects in apical level tests. The growing importance of sub-apical and chronic endpoints in future test strategies, however, suggests the limits may need re-assessment. To address this concern, microarrays were used to determine the effects of organic solvents, dimethylformamide (DMF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), upon the transcriptome of zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos. Embryos were exposed for 48 h to 0.025 and 0.1 ml/L DMF or DMSO. Effects on survival and development after 24 and 48 h were assessed microscopically with no effects on mortality or morphology. However, analysis of 48-h embryonic RNA revealed large numbers of differentially expressed genes for both solvent at both concentrations. The enrichment of differentially expressed genes was found for metabolic, development and other key biological processes, some of which could be linked to observed morphological effects at higher solvent concentrations. These findings emphasise the need to remove or lower as far as possible, the concentrations of solvent carriers in ecotoxicology tests.