PUBLICATION

Starvation stress affects the maternal development and larval fitness in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Authors
Fan, X., Hou, T., Sun, T., Zhu, L., Zhang, S., Tang, K., Wang, Z.
ID
ZDB-PUB-190820-12
Date
2019
Source
The Science of the total environment   695: 133897 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Keywords
Autophagic activity, DNA methylation, Maternal starvation, Reproductive impairments, Zebrafish
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Female
  • Larva/physiology
  • Starvation
  • Stress, Physiological/physiology*
  • Zebrafish/physiology*
PubMed
31425978 Full text @ Sci. Total Environ.
Abstract
The starvation is a common and severe stress for animal survival and development. In aquatic environment, many fish suffer starvation stress in different extent because of the natural migration or feed limitation. When subjected to starved conditions, organisms will employ various adaptive physiological, biochemical, and behavioral changes to regulate metabolism and maintain homeostasis. In the present study, adult female zebrafish were deprived of feed for 1 to 3 weeks to detect the starved effects on adults and larvae. The results showed that biological indexes, RNA/DNA ratios, and nutritional indexes significantly decreased in the female fish after starvation. The number of mature follicles reduced while the average spawning diameter of oocytes increased. For the larvae, the maternal starvation stress distinctly delayed embryonic hatching, decreased larval body length, disrupted larval swimming ability, and reduced survival rate at early-life stages. Furthermore, we found that DNA methylation might conduce to the downregulated mRNA expression of anti-Müllerian hormone and cytochrome P450 aromatase in retarded ovaries under starved conditions. Significant effects on autophagic transcription were shown in maternal ovary and larvae responded to starvation stress. Taken together, our study systematically revealed the reproductive impairments of starvation stress and would facilitate the investigation of environmental stress in teleost fish.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping