Aquaporin water channnels and osmoregulation in the European eel (Anguilla anguilla): the potential toxic effects of brominated flame retardants.

欧洲鳗鱼（安圭拉）的水通道蛋白水通道和渗透调节：溴化阻燃剂的潜在毒性作用。

• 批准号: NE/E015514/1
• 负责人: Gordon Cramb
• 金额: $ 59.97万
• 依托单位: University of St Andrews
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2008 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FE015514%2F1
• 关键词: Aquaporin; water; channnels; osmoregulation; European

The regulation of water transport is fundamental to the survival of all forms of life on the planet, from simple uni-cellular organisms to complex multi-cellular plants and animals, including mammals and man. The evolutionary success and survival of aquatic organisms in many diverse freshwater (FW) and sea water (SW) habitats has also been made possible by the development of complex inter-related ion and water transport systems which allow animals and plants to osmoregulate and survive in extreme hypotonic and hypertonic environments. Well-studied examples of this are the euryhaline teleosts, such as the European eel, which exhibit the genetic plasticity to enable survival in both FW and SW environments with only minimal changes in the osmolality and ionic composition of their body fluids. In order to accomplish this, euryhaline teleosts have evolved the capacity to adapt their osmoregulatory strategies to allow the excretion of excess water and the scavenging of salts from ion-poor FW habitats while reversing these functions when entering SW environments. Central to this process is the critical function of members of a large family of membrane transporting proteins called aquaporins, that not only regulate water transport between various compartments within the body but are also essential to the maintenance of the equilibrium between total body fluid volume and water availability in the external environment. In addition to water, a subset of these proteins are also able to transport small polar solutes including glycerol and urea as well as certain gases such as carbon dioxide and ammonia, which extends their physiological roles within all organisms. All aquatic organisms, including the euryhaline eel, depend on the normal functioning of these proteins for survival in both FW and SW environments but the varied roles of these proteins, and how they are hormonally regulated are poorly understood. This research programme will determine what members of the aquaporin family are present in the osmoregulatory and reproductive tissues of the eel and will characterise changes in their abundance and function as fish move between FW and SW environments. These investigations will highlight the critical physiological roles played by the aquaporins in the maintenance of body fluid composition when eels are exposed to the changes in environmental salinity normally associated with their migration back to the Sargasso sea to breed. The study will also highlight changes in aquaporin function within the developing gonads of the sexually maturing eels, where it has recently been reported in mammals that changes in water transport within the sperm and egg are essential pre-requisites for normal reproductive development. Over the last 30 years there has been a dramatic world-wide decline in eel populations, with reports of populations in some areas dropping to less than 10% of that recorded in the late 60s and early 70's. This period of population decline exhibits an inverse relationship to the increasing production and appearance within various environmental sediments and effluents, of a group of chemicals collectively known as brominated flame retardants (BFRs). These chemicals are extremely long-lived in the environment and are know to be accumulating within different species in various food chains, all the way up to and including man. Recent reports indicate that relatively low levels of some BFRs can act as endocrine disruptors by functioning as hormone mimetics or antagonists, compromising the normal functions of the thyroid hormones and sex steroids. As part of this project we will investigate the potential effects of BFRs on the hormonal regulation of aquaporin function in the European eel as it is possible that deleterious effects of these toxins on these water transporters may compromise the successful migration of fish from FW to SW environments and/or reduce the reproductive fecundity of fish returning to the Sargasso s

从简单的单细胞生物到复杂的多细胞植物和动物（包括哺乳动物和人类），对水运输的调节对地球上所有形式的生命的生存至关重要。水生生物在许多不同的淡水（FW）和海水（SW）栖息地的进化成功和生存，也可能是由于复杂的相互关联的离子和水运输系统的发展，使动植物能够在极端低渗和高渗环境中渗透调节和生存。这方面的研究很充分的例子是广盐硬骨鱼，如欧洲鳗鱼，它们表现出遗传可塑性，使它们能够在FW和SW环境中生存，而体液的渗透压和离子组成只有很小的变化。为了实现这一目标，泛盐硬骨鱼已经进化出适应渗透调节策略的能力，以排出多余的水，并从缺乏离子的FW栖息地清除盐，同时在进入SW环境时逆转这些功能。这个过程的核心是一个叫做水通道蛋白的膜运输蛋白大家族成员的关键功能，它不仅调节体内各个隔室之间的水运输，而且对维持体液总量和外部环境中水可用性之间的平衡也至关重要。除了水，这些蛋白质的一个子集还能够运输小的极性溶质，包括甘油和尿素，以及某些气体，如二氧化碳和氨，这扩展了它们在所有生物体中的生理作用。所有水生生物，包括广盐鳗，都依赖于这些蛋白的正常功能在FW和SW环境中生存，但这些蛋白的不同作用以及它们是如何被激素调节的，人们知之甚少。该研究计划将确定在鳗鱼的渗透调节和生殖组织中存在水通道蛋白家族的哪些成员，并将表征它们在FW和SW环境之间移动时丰度和功能的变化。这些研究将突出水通道蛋白在维持鳗鱼体液成分中所起的关键生理作用，当鳗鱼暴露于通常与它们迁移回马尾藻海繁殖有关的环境盐度变化时。这项研究还将重点关注性成熟鳗鱼性腺中水通道蛋白功能的变化，最近有报道称，哺乳动物精子和卵子中水运输的变化是正常生殖发育的必要先决条件。在过去的30年里，鳗鱼的数量在世界范围内急剧下降，一些地区的数量下降到不到60年代末和70年代初记录的10%。这一人口下降时期与各种环境沉积物和废水中统称为溴化阻燃剂（BFRs）的一组化学品的产量和外观呈反比关系。这些化学物质在环境中存在的时间非常长，并且已知会在不同物种的各种食物链中积累，一直到包括人类。最近的报告表明，一些相对低水平的BFRs可作为内分泌干扰物，发挥激素模拟物或拮抗剂的作用，损害甲状腺激素和性类固醇的正常功能。作为该项目的一部分，我们将调查BFRs对欧洲鳗水通道蛋白功能激素调节的潜在影响，因为这些毒素对这些水转运体的有害影响可能会损害鱼类从FW到SW环境的成功迁移，并/或降低鱼类返回马尾藻的繁殖能力

项目成果

Surviving in a toxic world: transcriptomics and gene expression profiling in response to environmental pollution in the critically endangered European eel.

• DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-13-507
• 发表时间: 2012-09-25
• 期刊: BMC genomics
• 影响因子: 4.4
• 作者: Pujolar JM;Marino IA;Milan M;Coppe A;Maes GE;Capoccioni F;Ciccotti E;Bervoets L;Covaci A;Belpaire C;Cramb G;Patarnello T;Bargelloni L;Bortoluzzi S;Zane L
• 通讯作者: Zane L

Aquaporin 4 is a ubiquitously expressed isoform in the dogfish (Squalus acanthias) shark

• DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2011.00107
• 发表时间: 2012-01-01
• 期刊: FRONTIERS IN PHYSIOLOGY
• 影响因子: 4
• 作者: Cutler, Christopher P.;MacIver, Bryce;Zeidel, Mark
• 通讯作者: Zeidel, Mark