Linking behavioural effects of thyroid active chemicals with molecular biomarkers and their application towards the evaluation of sewage treatment technologies

城市污水将多种药物和个人护理产品引入水环境。这些化学物质有可能通过扰乱激素功能而扰乱各种生物过程，然而二级和三级治疗并不是专门为去除这些内分泌干扰化合物(EDCs)而设计的。此外，缺乏有效的与环境和生态相关的方法来检测EDC活动，特别是对甲状腺激素(TH)干扰活动。这对所有脊椎动物的正常生长、行为、发育和新陈代谢都是必不可少的。这种作用最显著的例子之一是它们绝对需要触发青蛙蝌蚪变态成小狐狸。在蛙类物种中，代表最多人口的蛙类物种，蝌蚪从水生生活方式转变为陆地生活方式，其方式与围产期人类发育具有相当大的相似之处。拟议的项目结合了学术和政府科学家的专业知识，以本地两栖动物哨兵林蛙为基础建立标准化分析，并利用定量实时聚合酶链式反应(QPCR)识别与行为结果相关的TH干扰活动。拟议的项目将使用RNA-Seq发现牛蛙蝌蚪肝脏和大脑嗅叶TH活动的最敏感和最强大的指标基因转录本，并将这些转录本与神经功能的变化联系起来，通过选择迷宫和电嗅觉评估中的嗅觉线索反应来衡量这些变化。这些信息将指导QPCR阵列的开发，以评估去除的效果

Municipal wastewater effluents introduce a variety of pharmaceuticals and personal care products into the aquatic environment. These chemicals have the potential to perturb diverse biological processes by disrupting hormone function yet secondary & tertiary treatments are not specifically designed to remove these endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs). Moreover, effective environmentally- and ecologically-relevant methods for detecting EDC activity are lacking, particularly for thyroid hormone (TH)-disrupting activities. THs are essential for normal growth, behaviour, development, and metabolism in all vertebrates. One of the most striking examples of TH action is their absolute requirement for triggering frog tadpole metamorphosis into a froglet. In Ranid species, which represent the most populous of the frog families, the tadpole transitions from an aquatic to a terrestrial lifestyle in a manner possessing considerable parallels to perinatal human development. The proposed project combines the expertise of academic and government scientists to establish standardized assays based upon a native amphibian sentinel species, Rana catesbeiana, and quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) to identify TH-disrupting activities anchored to behavioural outcomes. The proposed project will discover gene transcripts that are the most sensitive and robust indicators of TH action in the bullfrog tadpole liver and brain olfactory lobe using RNA-Seq and link these to changes neurological function as measured by olfactory cue responses in choice maze and electro-olfactory assessments. This information will guide the development of QPCR arrays to evaluate the efficacy of removal