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Bioconcentration pattern and induced apoptosis of bisphenol A in zebrafish embryos at environmentally relevant concentrations

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Abstract

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a well-known endocrine-disrupting chemical that is ubiquitously present in the environment. In the present study, 4-h post-fertilization (hpf) zebrafish embryos were exposed to various environmentally relevant concentrations of BPA (0.1, 1, 10, 100, and 1000 μg/L) until 72 and 168 hpf, and the accumulation pattern of BPA and its potential to induce toxicity through apoptosis were determined. Compared to BPA concentrations in larvae at 168 hpf, BPA concentrations in embryos exposed until 72 hpf were at relatively higher levels (p < 0.05) with higher bioconcentration factor (BCF) values. The nonlinear fitting analysis indicated that the BCF values of BPA in fish embryos/larvae were significantly correlated to the log10-transformed BPA exposure concentrations in water in an inverse concentration-dependent manner. Fish accumulated more BPA as the exposure concentrations increased; however, their accumulation capacity of BPA declined and tended to be saturated in the high exposure groups of BPA. Moreover, caspase-3 activity was significantly induced upon BPA exposure at 0.1, 1, 10, and 100 μg/L BPA at 72 hpf, and also at 10 and 100 μg/L BPA at 168 hpf. Correspondingly, exposure to 10 and 100 μg/L of BPA significantly increased the DNA fragmentation in the extracted DNA at 168 hpf as determined by DNA ladder analysis. In addition, the expression patterns of four genes related to apoptosis including caspase-3, bax, p53, and c-jun were significantly up-regulated (p < 0.05) in fish embryos/larvae upon BPA exposure at 72 and 168 hpf. Our results revealed that low and environmentally relevant concentrations of BPA could be significantly accumulated in zebrafish and induced apoptosis with involvement of the regulation of caspase-3 and other apoptosis-related genes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Nature Science foundation of China (grants 31470554, 41430644), National Key Research and Development Project by MOST of China (No. 2016YFA0601001), the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13078), the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (14YZ001), Shanghai Pudong New Area Science and Technology Development Fund (PKJ2014-Y09), and Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning Research Project (201440309) (Dr. Zhong Chen).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, P.O. Box 144, Shangda Road 99, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Minghong Wu, Chenyuan Pan, Lihui Jiang, Penghui Lei & Ming Yang

  2. Department of Cardiology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai, 200233, China

    Zhong Chen

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  1. Minghong Wu
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  2. Chenyuan Pan
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Correspondence to Ming Yang.

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Responsible editor: Markus Hecker

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Wu, M., Pan, C., Chen, Z. et al. Bioconcentration pattern and induced apoptosis of bisphenol A in zebrafish embryos at environmentally relevant concentrations. Environ Sci Pollut Res 24, 6611–6621 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-8351-0

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