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Determination of an optimal age and duration of exposure of larval fathead minnows for gene expression-based studies
Citation:
Flick, R., D. Bencic, M. Kostich, AND A. Biales. Determination of an optimal age and duration of exposure of larval fathead minnows for gene expression-based studies. SETAC North America, Toronto, ON, CANADA, November 03 - 07, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
Determining the optimal age and duration of fathead minnow larvae for transcriptomics studies.
Description:
As genomic-based methods continue to play a greater role in the field of ecotoxicology, attention must be given to the appropriate design of studies. Exposure regimes often appear to be based on existing acute and chronic testing methods, which were designed for entirely different classes of endpoints. Very little work has been done to thoroughly evaluate the effect of exposure regime on genomic endpoints. In order to systematically study this issue, we exposed fathead minnow larvae at three different ages (48, 72 and 96 hours post fertilization) for three different durations (6, 24 and 48 h) to several compounds under static renewal conditions. Chemicals were selected to act along different MOA and have different target tissues. Using RNA-sequencing, we evaluated the global transcriptional profiles of the fish to determine the age and duration that provided the most interpretable and specific transcriptional response. The expression profiles at different ages and durations were found to be chemical-specific, with no one age-duration combination being the best. Based on our findings, we provide suggestions for the design of omics-based ecotoxicological experiments using larval fathead minnows.