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Abstract-Numerous environmentally relevant chemicals, including polychlorinated hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, organochlorine pesticides, chlorinated paraffins, organophosphorous pesticides, carbamate pesticides, cyanide compounds, methyl bromide, phenols, ammonia, metals, acid loads, sex steroids, and pharmaceuticals, exert acute or chronic effects on the thyroid cascade in the approximately 40 teleost fish species tested to date. Thyroid endpoints, therefore, serve as biomarkers of exposure to environmental pollutants. However, the mechanisms underlying thyroid changes and their physiological consequences are poorly understood because the thyroid cascade may respond indirectly and it has considerable capacity to compensate for abuses that otherwise would disrupt thyroid hormone homeostasis. Indeed, a xenobiotic-induced change in fish thyroid function has yet to be conclusively causally linked to decreased fitness or survival. Other complications in interpretation arise from the diversity of test conditions employed and the often indiscriminate use of numerous thyroid endpoints. Future work should be directed toward standardizing test conditions and thyroid endpoints and investigating causal links between thyroid changes and fish growth, reproduction, and development. Development may be particularly susceptible to thyroid disruption, and thyroid endpoints appropriate for early life stages need to be applied.

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Thyroid-related functions in organisms devoid of follicular thyroid tissue have been reviewed. In the lamprey, a primitive vertebrate, the larva concentrates iodide and synthesizes thyroid hormones (TH) by iodoperoxidase (IP)-mediated iodination of a thyroglobulin (TG)-like molecule in a subpharyngeal afollicular endostyle. The endostyle is the thyroid homolog, and it reorganizes into a follicular thyroid at metamorphosis to the adult. Ascidians and amphloxus, invertebrate protochordate relatives of vertebrates, also concentrate iodide and synthesize TH in a subpharyngeal afollicular endostyle, but the endostyle never transforms to follicles. Ascidian plasma contains L-thyroxine and its more biologically active derivative 3,5,3'-triiodo-L-thyronine, and TH receptors exist, but TH effects are poorly understood. No other invertebrates possess an endostyle. Several invertebrates concentrate iodide at other sites and form protein-incorporated iodohistidines and iodotyrosines; however, de novo iodothyronine biosynthesis through IP-mediated TG iodination has not been established. Nevertheless, TH occur in invertebrates, and exogenous iodothyrosines or iodothyronines have effects on jellyfish, insects, and sea urchins. Furthermore, gut bacteria metabolize TH, and plants may synthesize TH by nonenzymatic oxidative iodination. Thus, TH occur in many organisms and, after ingestion and enteric absorption, can enter the food chain. Indeed, sea urchin larvae obtain TH required to induce metamorphosis from plant diatoms. Thyroid hormones can therefore have vitamin-like effects and, in conjunction with vitamin D, and possibly with other steroids, may be more aptly termed vitamones. Availability of exogenous TH has implications for models of invertebrate and vertebrate TH metabolism and iodine salvaging, and it may explain the prominent and probable ancestral role of peripheral mechanisms in regulating thyroidal status.

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Weight gain and feed consumption results showed that rapeseed protein concentrate (RPC) and rapeseed meal (RM) can be substituted for soybean meal (SM) and perhaps partially for herring meal (HM) in rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri) control (SM–HM) diet and thus have economic benefits. Rapeseed flour (RF) was a poor source of proteins due to its greater effect on thyroid function. Rapeseed proteins have little effect on liver weight, body moisture, liver and body lipid, liver and body sterol content, visual and histological appearance of liver, heart and visceral tissues, or on the flavor, but caused yellow pigmentation of the skin. The levels of individual fatty acids in the diets directly affected the levels of individual fatty acids in the liver and body, while the type and level of dietary rapeseed proteins appeared to have no effect. The levels of fatty acids, 20:1 and 22:1 (includes erucic acid), were lower in the body and even lower in the liver compared with the diets. All test diets, except RPC–HM diet, caused marked thyroid hyperplasia, believed to be due to glucosinolates (goitrogens). However, some compensation for this goitrogenic action must occur because plasma T4 levels indicated a hypothyroid state for only five test diets (highest RPC-containing diet; highest RM-containing diet; all three RF-containing diets). Key words: dietary rapeseed, glucosinolates, feed–gain ratios, growth, lipids, fatty acids, plasma T4, thyroid histology, flavor, weight gain