PUBLICATION
Field-collected crude oil, weathered oil and dispersants differentially affect the early life stages of freshwater and saltwater fishes
- Authors
- Philibert, D.A., Lyons, D., Philibert, C., Tierney, K.B.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-180906-1
- Date
- 2018
- Source
- The Science of the total environment 647: 1148-1157 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Keywords
- Crude oil, Deepwater Horizon, Developmental toxicity, Dispersant, WAF, Weathered oil
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Fishes/physiology*
- Fresh Water/chemistry
- Gulf of Mexico
- Petroleum/analysis
- Petroleum/toxicity*
- Petroleum Pollution
- Seawater/chemistry
- Surface-Active Agents/analysis
- Surface-Active Agents/toxicity*
- Water Pollutants, Chemical/analysis
- Water Pollutants, Chemical/toxicity*
- PubMed
- 30180323 Full text @ Sci. Total Environ.
Citation
Philibert, D.A., Lyons, D., Philibert, C., Tierney, K.B. (2018) Field-collected crude oil, weathered oil and dispersants differentially affect the early life stages of freshwater and saltwater fishes. The Science of the total environment. 647:1148-1157.
Abstract
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was the biggest in US history and released 3.19 million barrels of light crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In this study, we compared the toxicity of water accommodated fractions (WAFs) of naturally weathered crude oils, source oil, and source oil with dispersant mixtures and their effects on developing sheepshead minnow and zebrafish. Although a freshwater fish, zebrafish has been used as a model for marine oil spills owing to the molecular and genetic tools available and their amenability to lab care. Our study not only aimed to determine the effect of crude oil on early life stages of these two fish species, but also aimed to determine whether dissolved crude oil constituents were similar in fresh and saltwater, and if freshwater fish might be a suitable model to study marine spills. Weathering and dispersant had similar effects on WAF composition in both fresh and saltwater, except that the saltwater source oil + dispersant WAF had markedly higher PAH levels than the freshwater equivalent. WAF exposure differentially affected survival, as the LC50 values in %WAF for the zebrafish and sheepshead minnow exposures were 44.9% WAF (95% confidence interval (C.I.) 42.1-47.9) and 16.8% WAF (95% C.I. 13.7-20.5); respectively. Exposure increased heart rate of zebrafish embryos, whereas in sheepshead, source oil exposure had the opposite effect. WAF exposure altered mRNA expression of biotransformation makers, vitellogenin and neurodevelopment genes in both species. Muscle deformations were only found in oil-exposed zebrafish. This is one of the most comprehensive studies to date on crude oil toxicity, and highlights the species-specific differences in cardiotoxicity, estrogenic effects, biotransformation enzyme induction and potential neurotoxicity of crude oil exposure.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping