Publication Science of The Total Environment

Accueil
News
Publication Science of The Total Environment

An environmentally relevant mixture PCBs and PBDEs disrupts mitochondrial function, lipid metabolism and neurotransmission in the brain of exposed zebrafish and their unexposed F2 offspring

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) are persistant organic pollutants present in aquatic environments despite their either total or partial removal from the market. Chronic exposition of zebrafish, a fish model, to a mixture of PCB and PBDE that is representative of European environmental situations, affects the energy metabolism, growth and reproduction in the exposed zebrafish (F0) as well as the behavior of their non-exposed offspring (F1-F4) (Horri et al., 2018 ; Alfonso et al., 2019).

In order to identify the molecular mechansims that could explain the observed phenotypes, scientists from GABI (INRAE/UPSaclay/AgroParisTech, Jouy-en-Josas), in partnership with scientists at Ifremer at the Université de Montpellier, Orebro (Sweden) and Bari (Italy) performed lipidomic and transcriptomic analyses on the brains of exposed adults (F0) and their non-exposed descendants (F2). In a study recently published in the journal, The Science of the Total Environment, they showed that in the F0, the mitochondrial function was altered along with the regulation of lipid metabolism (depletion of triglycerides and phospholipids). These modifications could explain the disruption of energy homeostasis. A subset of the regulated biological pathways related to energy metabolism and neurotransmission was inherited in the F2. The scientists also showed increasing effects on epigenetic pathways from the F0 to the F2 generation. Altogether, this study shows that the effects of an environmental exposure to PCB and PBDE on energy metabolism as well as neurotransmission extend over 2 generations of zebrafish, possibly due to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

  • Contact : xavier.cousin@ifremer.fr

See also

Bibliography:

Mélanie Blanc, Sébastien Alfonso, Marie-Laure Bégout, Célia Barrachina, Tuulia Hyötyläinen, Steffen H. Keiter, Xavier Cousin. An environmentally relevant mixture of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polybrominated diphenylethers (PBDEs) disrupts mitochondrial function, lipid metabolism and neurotransmission in the brain of exposed zebrafish and their unexposed F2 offspring. Science of The Total Environment, Volume 754, 2021, 142097, ISSN 0048-9697,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142097.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720356266)

Modification date : 14 September 2023 | Publication date : 15 February 2021 | Redactor : GABI