Chronic exposures to low and high concentrations of ibuprofen elicit different gene response patterns in a euryhaline fish

Abstract

Ibuprofen is one of the most commonly detected pharmaceuticals in wastewater effluent; however, the effects of ibuprofen on aquatic organisms are poorly understood. This study presents the transcriptome-wide response of the inland silverside, Menidia beryllina, to chronic exposure to ibuprofen. At the lowest exposure concentration (0.0115 mg/L), we detected a downregulation of many genes involved in skeletal development, aerobic respiration, and immune function. At the highest exposure concentration (1.15 mg/L), we detected increased expression of regulatory genes in the arachidonic acid metabolism pathway and several immune genes involved in an inflammatory response. Additionally, there was differential expression of genes involved in oxidative stress responses and a downregulation of genes involved in osmoregulation. This study provides useful information for monitoring the effects of this common wastewater effluent contaminant in the environment and for the generation of biomarkers of exposure to ibuprofen that may be transferable to other fish species.

Developmental exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of bifenthrin alters transcription of mTOR and ryanodine receptor-dependent signaling molecules and impairs predator avoidance behavior across early life stages in inland silversides (Menidia beryllina)

“…Eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4e ( eif4e ), which encodes for a protein that inhibits the translational mechanisms of mTOR signaling, and 40 s ribosomal protein s6 ( rps6 ) a downstream target of the mTOR pathway, were also evaluated. Sequences were sourced from earlier Menidia beryllina whole transcriptome assessments conducted by our group (Jeffries et al, 2015a; Brander et al, 2016), and specific genes were selected based on prior research conducted towards evaluating impacts of bifenthrin exposure on Zebrafish (Frank et al, 2018). Primers were obtained from Integrated DNA Technology (Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc., Coralville, IA, USA).…”

“…It is a well-suited species for ecotoxicological assessments representative of both freshwater and estuarine environments, for which it was developed as a model organism (Brander et al, 2012b). Several transcriptomic assessments have recently been conducted for this species (Jeffries et al, 2015a; Brander et al, 2016; DeCourten et al, 2018), providing a fundamental collection of RNA sequences towards the development of targeted molecular pathway assessments, such as the one presented herein.…”

Pharmaceutical pollution of aquatic environment: an emerging and enormous challenge

“…For example, the popular non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, diclofenac, naproxen and ibuprofen, were all shown to accumulate in fish (Lahti et al 2011). The concentration of ibuprofen determined in the fish plasma and bile samples was 100 to 1000-fold higher than in corresponding water samples (Jeffries et al 2015). Some antibiotics, particularly quinolones, can bioaccumulate at relatively high levels in molluscs (Li et al 2012).…”

Returning to normal? Assessing transcriptome recovery over time in male rainbow darter (Etheostoma caeruleum) liver in response to wastewater‐treatment plant upgrades

“…The mode of action of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs is inhibition of cyclooxygenase enzymes that catalyze the synthesis of prostaglandins via the oxidation of arachidonic acid [65,66]. However, this is no trivial task because there are hundreds of chemicals in the effluent mixtures which cannot be measured.…”