Effects of sediment eluates and extracts from differently polluted small rivers on zebrafish embryos and larvae

Abstract

The effects on newly fertilized eggs, embryos and larvae of zebrafish Danio rerio following exposure to sediment samples from the more heavily contaminated River Kö rsch, southern Germany, occurred earlier and were more prominent than in samples from the less contaminated Krähenbach. Dose-and time-related effects following exposure to Kö rsch sediment eluates and extracts included: (1) hatching failure and subsequent death of larvae exposed to undiluted aqueous sediment eluates and reduced hatching rates at sediment extract concentrations d0·0125%; (2) increased mortality after exposure to 25 and 50% dilutions of aqueous sediment eluates, and dilutions of d0·00625% sediment extracts; (3) reduction of heart beat frequency for 50% dilutions of sediment eluates and concentrations of d0·025% extracts; (4) increased frequency of heart and yolk sac oedema after exposure to d0·0125% sediment extracts. Since adverse effects of sediment extracts observed in zebrafish laboratory tests correlated with reproductive failure in natural populations of brown trout Salmo trutta f. fario in the severely polluted River Kö rsch, early life stages tests with zebrafish appear to be a suitable tool to assess the contamination rate of natural sediments.

Hazard identification of contaminated sites—ranking potential toxicity of organic sediment extracts in crustacean and fish

“…Hence, early life-stages, which are often considered more sensitive life stages than the adult stage Medina et al 2002;Kiparissis et al 2003), are rarely considered for hazard identification purposes. To identify the hazard potential of sediments, it is common to use organic sediment extracts (e.g., Gagné et al 1996;Strmac et al 2002;Hollert et al 2003;Viganó et al 2003;Kammann et al 2004;Keiter et al 2006;Kosmehl et al 2007;Seiler et al 2008), especially in situations when there is a need to identify those compounds actually causing adverse effects in the environmental samples (Sundberg et al 2005b(Sundberg et al , 2006. The use of extracts simplifies the exposure but also increases the bioavailability of especially hydrophobic substances compared to intact sediment (e.g., Eriksson Wiklund et al 2005).…”

Evaluation of cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of insecticide carbaryl to flounder gill cells and its teratogenicity to zebrafish embryos

“…The proteolytic hatching enzyme, secreted from hatching gland cells of the embryo, has the role of digesting the chorion during the normal hatching process of teleost embryos. Moreover, the interference of hatching-enzyme activity by osmotic disturbances, increased consumption of oxygen, and weakened spontaneous muscular movement can all affect the hatching (David and Pancharatna, 2009;Haendel et al, 2004;Strmac et al, 2002). Similar type of delayed hatching time was also observed earlier in carbaryl-exposed zebrafish embryos (Lin et al, 2007;Todd and van Leeuwen, 2002).…”

Toxicity evaluation of Meiliang Bay, Lake Taihu, China—a drinking water source

“…The endpoint of teratogenesis was more sensitive than the death endpoint. Some studies showed that minnows had a similar toxicological endpoint for toxins (Strmac et al, 2002). Therefore, the nonspecific reaction to toxin in early life stages, such as acantha distortion, the slow absorption of the vitellicle and formation of edema are worthy of further study.…”

“…The zebrafish embryo test also may provide information for chemical toxicity studies during different zebrafish embryo growth stages. The zebrafish embryo test has been used to evaluate toxic substance and toxicological mechanisms (Gellert & Heinrichsdorff, 2001;Zhu & Shi, 2002;Strmac et al, 2002).…”