The Effect of the Pyrethroid Pesticide Fenpropathrin on the Cardiac Performance of Zebrafish and the Potential Mechanism of Toxicity

Abstract

Fenpropathrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, has been widely used for many years in agricultural fields. It works by disturbing the voltage-gated sodium channel, leading to paralysis and the death of the target animal. While past studies have focused on neurodegeneration following fenpropathrin poisoning in humans, relatively few pieces of research have examined its effect on other peripheral organs. This study successfully investigated the potential toxicity of fenpropathrin on the cardiovascular system using zebrafish as an animal model. Zebrafish larvae exposed to varying doses of fenpropathrin underwent an evaluation of cardiac physiology by measuring the heart rate, stroke volume, cardiac output, and shortening fraction. The blood flow velocity and the dorsal aorta diameter were also measured to assess the impact of fenpropathrin exposure on the vascular system. Furthermore, molecular docking was performed to evaluate the pesticide binding affinity to various proteins associated with the cardiovascular system, revealing the potential mechanism of the fenpropathrin cardiotoxic effect. The findings demonstrated a significant dose-dependent increase in the heart rate stroke volume, cardiac output, shortening fraction, and ejection fraction of zebrafish larvae after 24 h of acute treatment with fenpropathrin. Additionally, zebrafish treated at a concentration of 1 ppm exhibited significantly larger blood vessels in diameter and an increased blood flow velocity compared to the control group. According to molecular docking, fenpropathrin showed a high affinity for various voltage-gated sodium channels like scn1lab, cacna1sb, and clcn3. Finally, from the results, we found that fenpropathrin caused cardiomegaly, which may have been induced by the voltage-gated sodium channel disruption. This study highlights the significant disruption of fenpropathrin in the cardiovascular system and emphasizes the need for further research on the health implications of this pesticide.

Evaluation of Tacrolimus’ Adverse Effects on Zebrafish in Larval and Adult Stages by Using Multiple Physiological and Behavioral Endpoints

“…Later, to evaluate their cardiac physiology, the lengths of the short and long axes of the heart chamber during the diastolic and systolic phases were measured to obtain the end-diastolic and systolic volumes by assuming that the heart chamber had a spheroid shape [29]. The cardiac endpoints were calculated later by using the formulas described in a prior study [30]. Finally, a high-speed digital CCD camera (AZ Instrument, Taichung City, Taiwan) combined with a Hoffman modulation contrast objective lens with 40× mounted on an inverted microscope (ICX41, Sunny Optical Technology, YuYao, China) was used to record the dorsal aorta area of the larvae during the vascular performance analysis for 10 s at 200 fps.…”

“…To obtain the blood flow profile, a file consisting of two rows of data (time and blood flow speed per frame for each detected blood cell) of one of the most represented larvae was smoothed using the smooth function from Origin Pro 2019 and output as a graph later by GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Software version 8 Inc., La Jolla, CA, USA). All the tests were performed in three replications and the applied protocol was based on a previous study [30].…”