Developmental toxicity from exposure to various forms of mercury compounds in medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) embryos

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1 School of Animal Science and Technology; Inner Mongolia Provincial Key Laboratory for Toxicants and Animal Disease, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Tongliao, China
2 Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States
3 Zunyi Medical College, Department of Pharmacology, Zunyi, China
4 Department of Tibetan Medicine, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, China
5 School of Animal Science and Technology; Inner Mongolia Provincial Key Laboratory for Toxicants and Animal Disease, Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, Inner Mongolia Provincial Key Laboratory for Toxicants and Animal Disease, Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities, Tongliao, China
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.2329v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Aquaculture, Fisheries and Fish Science, Developmental Biology, Toxicology, Pharmacology, Public Health
Keywords
MeHg, HgCl2, α-HgS (Zhu Sha cinnabar), β-HgS (Zuotai), medaka, developmental toxicity, heme oxygenase-1, mercury, metallothionein
Copyright
© 2016 Dong et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Dong W, Liu J, Wei L, Jingfeng Y, Chernick M, Hinton DE. 2016. Developmental toxicity from exposure to various forms of mercury compounds in medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) embryos. PeerJ Preprints 4:e2329v1

Abstract

This study examined developmental toxicity of different mercury compounds, including some used in traditional medicines. Medaka (Oryzias latipes) embryos were exposed to 0.001-10 μM concentrations of MeHg, HgCl2, α-HgS (Zhu Sha), and β-HgS (Zuotai) from stage 10 (6-7 hpf) to 10 days post fertilization (dpf). Of the forms of mercury in this study, the organic form (MeHg) proved the most toxic followed by inorganic mercury (HgCl2), both producing embryo developmental toxicity. Altered phenotypes included pericardial edema with elongated or tube heart, reduction of eye pigmentation, and failure of swim bladder inflation. Both α-HgS and β-HgS were less toxic than MeHg and HgCl2. Total RNA was extracted from survivors 3 days after exposure to MeHg (0.1 μM), HgCl2 (1 μM), α-HgS (10 μM), or β-HgS (10 μM) to examine toxicity-related gene expression. MeHg and HgCl2 markedly induced metallothionein (MT) and heme oxygenase-1 (Ho-1), while α-HgS and β-HgS failed to induce either gene. Chemical forms of mercury compounds proved to be a major determinant in their developmental toxicity.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.

Supplemental Information

Supplemental Table 1: Public health guidelines for mercury in drinking water and fish: Creating context and justification for this study

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2329v1/supp-1

Supplemental Table 2: Mean survival and mortality (±SD) for each concentration of the mercury compounds tested

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2329v1/supp-2