PUBLICATION
The Nicotine-Evoked Locomotor Response: A Behavioral Paradigm for Toxicity Screening in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryos and Eleutheroembryos Exposed to Methylmercury
- Authors
- Mora-Zamorano, F.X., Svoboda, K.R., Carvan, M.J.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-160429-2
- Date
- 2016
- Source
- PLoS One 11: e0154570 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Carvan III, Michael J., Svoboda, Kurt
- Keywords
- Embryos, Zebrafish, Biological locomotion, Swimming, Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, Neurons, Phenotypes, Spinal cord
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Behavior, Animal/drug effects*
- Embryo, Nonmammalian/drug effects*
- Locomotion/drug effects*
- Methylmercury Compounds/toxicity*
- Motor Activity/drug effects*
- Neurotoxicity Syndromes/diagnosis
- Nicotine/pharmacology
- Nicotinic Agonists/pharmacology
- Receptors, Nicotinic/metabolism
- Swimming/physiology
- Zebrafish/embryology*
- Zebrafish/physiology
- PubMed
- 27123921 Full text @ PLoS One
Citation
Mora-Zamorano, F.X., Svoboda, K.R., Carvan, M.J. (2016) The Nicotine-Evoked Locomotor Response: A Behavioral Paradigm for Toxicity Screening in Zebrafish (Danio rerio) Embryos and Eleutheroembryos Exposed to Methylmercury. PLoS One. 11:e0154570.
Abstract
This study is an adaptation of the nicotine-evoked locomotor response (NLR) assay, which was originally utilized for phenotype-based neurotoxicity screening in zebrafish embryos. Zebrafish embryos do not exhibit spontaneous swimming until roughly 4 days post-fertilization (dpf), however, a robust swimming response can be induced as early as 36 hours post-fertilization (hpf) by means of acute nicotine exposure (30-240μM). Here, the NLR was tested as a tool for early detection of locomotor phenotypes in 36, 48 and 72 hpf mutant zebrafish embryos of the non-touch-responsive maco strain; this assay successfully discriminated mutant embryos from their non-mutant siblings. Then, methylmercury (MeHg) was used as a proof-of-concept neurotoxicant to test the effectiveness of the NLR assay as a screening tool in toxicology. The locomotor effects of MeHg were evaluated in 6 dpf wild type eleutheroembryos exposed to waterborne MeHg (0, 0.01, 0.03 and 0.1μM). Afterwards, the NLR assay was tested in 48 hpf embryos subjected to the same MeHg exposure regimes. Embryos exposed to 0.01 and 0.03μM of MeHg exhibited significant increases in locomotion in both scenarios. These findings suggest that similar locomotor phenotypes observed in free swimming fish can be detected as early as 48 hpf, when locomotion is induced with nicotine.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping