Impact of deltamethrin exposure on mRNA expression levels of metallothionein A, B and cytochrome P450 1A in rainbow trout muscles

Metallothioneins (MT) are widely utilized to identify specific responses to heavy metal pollution. In addition, there is evidence demonstrating that in vertebrates MT synthesis is stimulated by different endogenous and exogenous agents in particular compounds leading to production of ROS. Also, cytochrome P450 1A can enhance the generation of ROS. On this basis, MT and CYP 1A induction can be considered as biomarkers of oxidative stress. In the current study, we examined the influences of pesticide administration on the expression of MT-A, MT-B and CYP 1A. For this purpose, we produced muscle metallothionein-A, metallothionein-B and cytochrome P450 1A cDNAs and used quantitative RT-PCR to assay mRNAs in rainbow trout exposed to acute and long-term deltamethrin administration. We observed that deltamethrin exposure significantly (p < 0.05) increased the expression levels of Cyp1A, MT-A and MT-B in a time dependent manner. Results of our study contributes to the identification of inducers of such biomarkers in addition to well known agents.