[Retracted] Investigation on Immune‐Related Protein (Heat Shock Proteins and Metallothionein) Gene Expression Changes and Liver Histopathology in Cadmium‐Stressed Fish

Abstract

Heat shock proteins (HSP) are highly conserved in their structure and released in case of stress. Increased metallothionein (MT) synthesis is associated with increased capacity for binding heavy metals. Healthy juveniles of grass carp were exposed to sublethal dose (1.495 mg L-1) of cadmium for 28 days. Simultaneously, a control group was also run to compare difference of total RNA expression levels in cadmium-treated and control groups. The cadmium levels in the tissues of treated fish recorded were 1.78 ± 0.10 mg L − 1 , 1.60 ± 0.04 mg L − 1 , and 2.00 ± 0.05 mg L − 1 , respectively. Several histological alterations including edema, hemorrhage, dilated sinusoids, hypertrophy, hyperplasia, congestion of central vein, and nuclear alterations were observed in cadmium-exposed fish. Stress gene (metallothionein and heat shock proteins) mRNA transcription levels were studied by mRNA extraction and cDNA preparation by using PCR. The expression level of heat shock protein gene was higher as compared to metallothionein and beta-2-microglobulin gene after cadmium exposure. This study reports various stress-related immune-responsive changes of immune proteins, heat shock proteins, metallothionein, and histopathological changes in fish due to cadmium toxicity that make the fish immunocompromised which may be considered as the biomarkers of cadmium toxicity in other experimental species.

Toxic Effects of Cadmium on Fish

“…With the increase in Cd concentration, the degree of irreversible damage to the structure of fish liver cells also increases significantly, which mainly includes endoplasmic reticulum expansion, nuclear deformation, nuclear membrane mitochondrial swelling, distortion, granular cytoplasm, and cell edema and cavitation. When the liver tissue structure is destroyed, the detoxification ability of the liver is significantly reduced, which has an irreversible impact on growth, reproduction, and survival [ 17 , 95 , 96 ].…”

Whole genome discovery of regulatory genes responsible for the response of chicken to heat stress

“…Several studies have shown that the expression of some genes under AHS is modified 36 , 70 – 72 , possibly through the interaction with small or long noncoding RNAs 20 – 24 . Therefore, the identification of key coding genes and their corresponding regulatory elements (i.e., lncRNA and miRNA) is critically important to reveal the causative factors associated with AHS in liver of chickens, as liver is extremely vulnerable under the influence of heat stress 73 , 74 . Structural similarity of lncRNA to mRNA 27 – 29 has allowed us to investigate both of them simultaneously using RNA-seq data.…”

Retracted: Investigation on Immune-Related Protein (Heat Shock Proteins and Metallothionein) Gene Expression Changes and Liver Histopathology in Cadmium-Stressed Fish

“…This article has been retracted by Hindawi following an investigation undertaken by the publisher [ 1 ]. This investigation has uncovered evidence of one or more of the following indicators of systematic manipulation of the publication process: Discrepancies in scope Discrepancies in the description of the research reported Discrepancies between the availability of data and the research described Inappropriate citations Incoherent, meaningless and/or irrelevant content included in the article Manipulated or compromised peer review …”

“…This article has been retracted by Hindawi following an investigation undertaken by the publisher [1]. This investigation has uncovered evidence of one or more of the following indicators of systematic manipulation of the publication process:…”