Transcriptome alterations in zebrafish embryos after exposure to environmental estrogens and anti-androgens can reveal endocrine disruption.
Exposure to environmental chemicals known as endocrine disruptors (EDs) is in many cases associated with an unpredictable hazard for wildlife and human health. The identification of endocrine disruptive properties of chemicals certain to enter the aquatic environment relies on toxicity tests with fish, assessing adverse effects on reproduction and sexual development. The demand for quick, reliable ED assays favored the use of fish embryos as alternative test organisms. We investigated the application of a transcriptomics-based assay for estrogenic and anti-androgenic chemicals with zebrafish embryos. Two reference compounds, 17α-ethinylestradiol and flutamide, were tested to evaluate the effects on development and the transcriptome after 48h-exposures. Comparison of the transcriptome response with other estrogenic and anti-androgenic compounds (genistein, bisphenol A, methylparaben, linuron, prochloraz, propanil) showed commonalities and differences in regulated pathways, enabling us to classify the estrogenic and anti-androgenic potencies. This demonstrates that different mechanism of ED can be assessed already in fish embryos.
Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: schiller@molbiotech.rwth-aachen.de.
Viktoria
V
Schiller
Arne
A
Wichmann
Ralf
R
Kriehuber
Christoph
C
Schäfers
Rainer
R
Fischer
Martina
M
Fenske
D000726:Androgen Antagonists / Q000633:toxicity*; D000818:Animals; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian; D052244:Endocrine Disruptors / Q000633:toxicity*; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D004967:Estrogens / Q000633:toxicity*; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D006257:Head / Q000002:abnormalities; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D013623:Tail / Q000002:abnormalities; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D059467:Transcriptome; D015027:Zebrafish
D000726:Androgen Antagonists; D052244:Endocrine Disruptors; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D004967:Estrogens
17α-Ethinylestradiol; Anti-androgen; Endocrine disruption; Estrogen; Flutamide; Transcriptomics; Zebrafish embryo