A novel variant of aquaporin 3 is expressed in killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) intestine

Killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) are euryhaline teleosts that are widely used in environmental and toxicological studies, and they are tolerant to arsenic, in part due to very low assimilation of arsenic from the environment. The mechanism of arsenic uptake by the intestine, a major route of arsenic uptake in humans is unknown. Thus, the goal of this study was to determine if aquaglyceroporins (AQPs), which transport water and other small molecules including arsenite across cell membranes, are expressed in the killifish intestine, and whether AQP expression is affected by osmotic stress. Through RT-PCR and sequence analysis of PCR amplicons, we demonstrated that the intestine expresses kfAQP3a and kfAQP3b, two previously identified variants, and also identified a novel variant of killifish AQP3 (kfAQP3c) in the intestine. The variants likely represent alternate splice forms. A BLAST search of the F. heteroclitus reference genome revealed that the AQP3 gene resides on a single locus, while an alignment of the AQP3 sequence among 384 individuals from eight population ranging from Rhode Island to North Carolina revealed that its coding sequence was remarkably conserved with no fixed polymorphism residing in the region that distinguishes these variants. We further demonstrate that the novel variant transports arsenite into HEK293T cells. Whereas kfAQP3a, which does not transport arsenite, was expressed in both freshwater (FW) and saltwater (SW) acclimated fish, kfAQP3b, an arsenic transporter, was expressed only in FW acclimated fish, and kfAQP3c was expressed only in SW acclimated fish. Thus, we have identified a novel, putative splice variant of kfAQP3, kfAQP3c, which transports arsenic and is expressed only in SW acclimated fish.