Cadmium-induced genotoxicity in zebrafish at environmentally relevant doses

Genotoxic effects of cadmium on zebra fish Danio rerio have been assessed by random amplified polymorphic DNA and real time PCR, followed by a comparison of the melting temperature patterns between each amplification reaction. Fish were exposed to two concentrations of cadmium chloride dissolved in the medium (1.9±0.6 μg Cd l−1, C1; 9.6±2.9 μg Cd l−1, C2) for 21 days. A discriminative RAPD probe, OPB11, was first selected producing differential band patterns between control and metal-exposed genomic DNAs. RAPD-PCR showed an increase in the relative hybridization efficiency of OPB11 on the genomic DNAs coming from fish exposed to both Cd concentrations as compared to the control condition. In addition, the RAPD-PCR melting temperature patterns showed that with the OPB11 probe, the frequency of PCR products whose fusion temperature belongs to the [86–87 °C] interval decreased with Cd contamination, whereas an increase of frequency for the [78–80 °C] and [85–86 °C] intervals was correlated with Cd exposure.