Developmental abnormalities and differential expression of genes induced in oil and dispersant exposed Menidia beryllina embryos

Exposure of fish embryos to relatively low concentrations of oil has been implicated in sub-lethal toxicity. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of the exposure of Menidia beryllina embryos at 30-48 h post-fertilization to the water accommodated fractions of oil (WAF, 200 ppm, v/v), dispersants (20 ppm, v/v, Corexit 9500 or 9527), and mixtures of oil and each of the dispersants to produce chemically enhanced water accommodated fractions (CEWAFs) over a 72-hour period. The polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and benzene, toluene, ethylene and xylene (BTEX) constituents of the 5X concentrated exposure solutions (control, WAF, dispersants and CEWAFs) were determined and those of the 1× exposures were derived using a dilution factor. PAH, BTEX and low molecular weight PAH constituents greater than 1 ppb were observed in WAF and the dispersants, but at much higher levels in CEWAFs. The WAF and CEWAFs post-weathering were diluted at 1:5 (200 ml WAF/CEWAF: 800 ml 25 ppt saltwater) for embryo exposures. Mortality, heartbeat, embryo normalcy, abnormality types and severities were recorded. The qPCR assay was used to quantify abundances of transcripts of target genes for sexual differentiation and sex determination (StAR, dmrt-1, amh, cyp19b, vtg and chg-L,), growth regulation (ghr) and stress response (cyp1a and Hsp90); and gapdh served as the housekeeping gene. Temperature was 21 ± 1.5 °C throughout the experimental period, while mortality was low and not significantly different (p = 0.68) among treatments. Heartbeat was significantly different (0.0034) with the lowest heartbeats recorded in Corexit 9500 (67.5 beats/min) and 9527 (67.1 beats/min) exposed embryos compared with controls (82.7 beats/min). Significantly more treated embryos were in a state of deterioration, with significantly more embryos presenting arrested tissue differentiation compared with controls (p = 0.021). Exposure to WAF, dispersants and CEWAF induced aberrant expression of all the genes, with star, dmrt-1, ghr and hsp90 being significantly down-regulated in CEWAF and cyp19b in Corexit 9527. The cyp1a and cyp19b were significantly up-regulated in CEWAFs and WAF, respectively. The molecular endpoints were most sensitive, especially the expression of star, cyp19b, cyp1a, hsp90 and could therefore be used as early indicators of long term effects of Corexit 9500 and 9527 usage in oil spill management on M. beryllina, a valid sentinel for oil pollution events.