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Evaluation of Minimally Invasive Metabolomic Methods for Assessing the Sex and Health of Sturgeons
Citation:
Ekman, D., S. Romano, Q. Teng, A. Fox, S. Kornberg, AND T. Collette. Evaluation of Minimally Invasive Metabolomic Methods for Assessing the Sex and Health of Sturgeons. 153rd Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society, Grand Rapids, MI, August 20 - 24, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
Communicate results of novel method for monitoring protected fish species to stakeholders and researchers via a platform presentation.
Description:
Metabolomics is an information-rich technique that involves profiling all measurable endogenous metabolites in an organism’s tissues or biofluids and is being used increasingly to provide novel insights to support fish health research including monitoring responses to external stressors (e.g., temperature fluctuations, low dissolved oxygen, nutritional restrictions, exposure to chemical pollutants, etc.). Interestingly, one of the most striking findings in many metabolomic studies with fish is the clear difference in metabolite profiles that are observed between adult males and females of a given species. Such sex specificity has been observed for metabolite profiles in both blood plasma/serum and epidermal mucus suggesting the use of these biofluids for sexing protected fish species that do not display obvious sexual dimorphism, and which must be sampled non-lethally. Sturgeon in particular exhibit no clear external sexually dimorphic characteristics; thus, differentiating sexes typically requires techniques such as gonadal biopsy, endoscopy, or ultrasound, which are time consuming and not ideally suited for vulnerable species. Therefore, a central goal of the current study was to evaluate differences in endogenous metabolite profiles in blood serum and epidermal mucus collected from male and female adult sturgeon. We collected samples from a captive population of age-identified adult male and female Russian sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii) and adult male and female Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baerii). Endogenous metabolite profiles of blood serum and epidermal mucus were measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and evaluated for extent of sex specificity within each species. The results of these analyses will be presented alongside a characterization of the blood serum and epidermal mucus metabolomes for these two species with an emphasis on their potential for health monitoring.
