Project description:Aquatic organisms, such as fish, are in constant contact with various anthropogenic stressors present in their environments, including contaminants from wastewater treatment plant effluents (WWTPE). WWTPE represents a pervasive source of pharmaceutically active compounds in surface waters This study investigates the effects of WWTPE exposure on Etheostoma spp. (darters) using hepatic transcriptomic profiling. Wild darters—Etheostoma caeruleum (rainbow darter), Etheostoma blennioides (greenside darter), Etheostoma flabellare (fantail darter), and Etheostoma nigrum (Johnny darter)—were collected upstream and downstream of the Waterloo municipal WWTP effluent outfall (Grand River, ON).
Project description:Wastewater treatment plant effluents (WWTPE) represent a pervasive source of pharmaceutically active compounds in surface waters, with the serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor venlafaxine (VEN) frequently detected at elevated concentrations in receiving waters worldwide. VEN is a chiral pharmaceutical administered as a racemic (50:50) mixture of R- and S-enantiomers, which exhibit distinct pharmacological activities and can be selectively degraded or enriched in effluent depending on treatment processes. However, little is known about the stereoselective toxicological effects of VEN in fish. This work investigates the effects of VEN exposure on Etheostoma caeruleum (rainbow darter) using transcriptomic profiling.
Project description:In this study, adult male rainbow darter (Etheostoma caeruleum) were collected from nine sites located at different distances from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the Grand River, Ontario, Canada. The goal of this project was to see if the liver transcriptome of fish residing downstream of the two WWTPs differs from the non-exposed fish. Further, this research was also addressing the affects of differnent reference site selection on gene expression patterns, and their subsequent interpretation.The RNA from male rainbow darter was exctracted from liver tissue and used for further gene expression analysis.
