Zebrafish Are Small Aquatic Organisms Which Are Common

The science behind FAS is quite simple; as it is known that alcohol has a damaging effect on the body, it has similar consequences on the fetus. Since the fetus is constantly developing, the alcohol causes more serious defects to the unborn child. Alcohol exposure to a fetus is known as a teratogen. “Teratogens are substances or conditions that disrupt typical development in offspring as a result of gestational exposure and cause birth defects.” (Wilson & Fraser, 1977). Although the exposure to alcohol causes problems in the fetus, studies have shown that it may not accurately be the alcohol in the mother’s system that causes these defects, rather the byproducts that form when the body metabolizes the alcohol. This can lead to a decrease in brain cells, abnormal location of neurons, and gross malformation to the brain. Since alcohol causes this central nervous system damage, it is classified as a neurobehavioral teratogen, which is a group of teratogens that cause brain damage and modify behaviors. (Riley & Vorhees, 1986). The CNS damage is the primary defect due to alcohol and it is quite common to have these damages without any physical abnormalities. The more alcohol that is consumed the more birth defects that will arise in the

Lithium chloride (LiCl), is an ionic compound used in medication for affective psychological disorders. LiCl has also been linked to problems with the development of cardiac and nervous systems in vertebrates. The experiment proposed will investigate the effects of different concentrations of lithium chloride upon embryo development in vertebrates, using Zebrafish as a model vertebrate organism. Zebrafish embryos will be used, as they are aquatic, which allows for convenient administration of LiCl solution.

SnoLab is studying these effects on various organisms in two phases. The first phase is the effects of radiation absence on lake whitefish embryos. They chose these embryos because of their development period and the easy nature of raising them. The embryos are kept in two fridges of different temperature both underground and above

In 1996, the United States Institue of Medicine published Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Diagnosis, Epidemiology, Prevention and Treatment. The book created four diagnostic categories for disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. They were: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (PFAS), Alcohol Related Birth Defects (ARBD) and Alcohol Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ARND)(Stratton,1996). The differences between the disorders include the types of defects expressed and whether or not maternal alcohol consumption is confirmed. For example, ARND is characterized by intellectual disabilities and behavior and learning problems in the absence of physical defects. ARBD, on the other hand, lacks apparent neurobehavioral or brain disorders, but physical defects linked to prenatal alcohol exposure are present. (NOFAS)

During the ten months of gestation, the ever-growing fetus goes through the stages and changes of becoming a functional human. Unfortunately for some, these children will not get the full advantages of life because of the choices of another. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) has been calculated to have an impact on nearly forty thousand infants a year (fasdcenter). To really see the magnitude of the effects of this easily preventable disorder, researchers followed children from birth into later years to study the deficits placed on these individuals.

In this experiment, the purpose was to identify the effect of sedatives and stimulants on the circulatory system on the ghost shrimp and the black worm. We used caffeine as our stimulant and ethanol as our sedative. The shrimp was placed on a wet petri dish, where it was covered. After letting the shrimp rest for a few minutes, we placed it under the lowest light of a dissecting microscope. Then we located the heart, counted the number of beats in 10 seconds and multiplied it by 6 to acquire the beats-per-minute. In the next trial we dropped 0.5 mL of .0005 M caffeinated solution on the shrimp and waited 2 minutes before we measured the bpm. After the bpm was recorded, the shrimp was washed with spring water. The same procedure was performed

Due to an influx of freshwater from melting polar ice caps, the overall saline concentration of various saltwater environments has been steadily decreasing for years, thereby endangering their inhabitants (Lessios, 2008). For these organisms, including Lytechinus purpuratus, a species of sea urchin, this environmental change has the potential to harm many of their natural functions. As such, it would be expected that the gametes of this organism would not be able to properly fertilize when their natural environment is altered. In this experiment, L. purpuratus eggs were exposed to a natural environmental saline concentration (Cowart et al., 2008), as well as two environments above and two environments below this natural saline concentration. This was done in order to test their ability to be fertilized and the rate at which they fertilize under this environmental stress. It was believed that the conditions below the natural saline environment would have a greater adverse effect on the fertilization success of the sea urchin eggs than the environments above the natural saline solution. This was predicted because sea urchins,

Zebra mussels may cause many effects on nature as well as to our wallets. Early research shows that zebra mussels can rapidly accumulate organic pollutants within their tissues to levels more than three hundred thousand times greater than concentrations in the environment. They also deposit these pollutants in their "pseudo-feces". Pseudo-feces or

They were obtained from fish that had been used to make breeding behaviour videos. The objective of these videos was to determine whether there were significant behavioural differences between WT and KO fish. The night before 20 tanks would be set up. Each tank contained one female and one male fish. Boxes and black plastic bags were used to keep fish in the dark until they could be filmed. Each video was ten minutes long. 80 tanks were filmed for SgIIa KO, SgIIb KO and WT fish respectively. Additional data obtained from the breeding experiment included the number of embryos produced, the number of unfertilized embryos as well as the number of dead embryos 6 hours post-fertilization (hpf). Once these results were recorded samples could be collected for ISH, the first taken at 6hpf after the dead embryos were counted. After that, samples were collected at 24, 30, 48, 72, 96 and 120 hpf. Each sample consisted of approximately 25 embryos or larvae that would be fixed in paraformaldehyde (PFA). After fixation embryos would be dechorionated and the samples would be dehydrated with methanol washes before being conserved in the -20˚C freezer until the student for whom the samples were collected could complete the remainder of the ISH protocol. Because at this age the fish are very small the procedure used was for whole

The chemicals that leak from the plastics can affect the organisms that live in our ocean. “Our study aims at evaluating the effects of 40 nm PS anionic carboxylate (PS-COOH) and 50 nm cationic amino-modified (PS-NH 2) NPs in two planktonic species, the green microalga Dunaliella tertiolecta and the brine shrimp Artemia franciscana , respectively prey and predator. PS NP behavior in exposure media was determined through DLS, while their toxicity to microalgae and brine shrimps evaluated through 72 h growth inhibition test and 14 d long-term toxicity test respectively. Moreover, the expression of target genes (i.e. clap and cstb), having a role in brine shrimp larval growth and molting, was measured in 48 h brine shrimp larvae. A different behavior of the two PS NPs in exposure media as well as diverse toxicity to the two planktonic species was observed. PS-COOH formed micro-scale aggregates (Z-Average > 1 μm) and did not affect the growth of microalgae up to 50 μg/ml or that of brine shrimps up to 10 μg/ml. However, these negatively charged NPs were adsorbed

Oxygen is important for all aerobic organisms, especially for fish who live in the aquatic environment with routinely low dissolved oxygen (Wang et al., 2017b). Under aquaculture conditions, hypoxia can be caused by natural phenomena (e.g., weather, temperature, or water flow rate), water pollution and eutrophication, high stocking density, and improper use of aeration (Green et al., 2016; Wu, 2002; Zhang et al., 2010). In spite of the strong tolerance of catfish to low oxygen, hypoxia can still lead to huge economic losses. In channel catfish, hypoxia stress may affect the growth and yield (Burggren and Cameron, 1980; Welker et al., 2007). In addition, exposure to hypoxia can also cause depression of the immune system and increased susceptibility

Fetotoxic effects of maternal ethanol (E) intake are well documented in animals and humans. Central among the responses to E exposure are developmental deficits affecting multiple brain regions, including the cerebellum, hippocampus, olfactory bulbs, and cerebral cortex [1-4]. In vivo, moderate, clinically relevant E can generate enhanced apoptotic loss of neurons in the developing brain [4-11]. E is a prooxidant and fetal cells are highly sensitive to E/ oxidative stress (OS) [5, 12-14]. Thus, redox imbalance is a mechanism underlying E-induced neuron apoptosis in developing brain [5, 12-14]. E produces an enhanced apoptotic death in a subpopulation of cells with the lowest GSH content and normalizing this redox imbalance by stabilizing

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) have been used in developmental biology and molecular genetics studies, as well as in high-throughput screening for toxicity of chemicals (Hill et al., 2005). Among the several characteristics that make the zebrafish a useful animal model in research are: high fecundity; low maintenance costs in comparison with mammals; rapid embryogenesis; larvae transparency that allows the visualization of tissues in vivo; absorption of compounds from water, and the high degree of similarity with the human genome (Chakraborti et al, 2009).

There has been a great amount of research done using the chick model to study effects of ethanol on embryonic development. It is widely accepted that ethanol-induced neural crest losses may be responsible for the craniofacial defects observed in FAS (4). It has also been shown that a critical window exists for when ethanol-induced losses will take place. Studies in mice and chicks have shown that ethanol exposure at specific stages in development results in significant cell death; however, exposure causes apoptosis in cNCCs only if it is administered before the CNN migrate into the neuroectoderm (9). Our data shows that increased ethanol concentration had a significant effect on chick head diameter, however our data did not show significant

The Stegostoma fasciatum (zebra shark) is an endangered species found in Indo-Pacific oceans1. The species has been observed for migratory behavior and in recent years, for cases of parthenogenesis- a form of asexual reproduction in which the embryos are not fertilized. The species reproduces sexually in its natural habitat. Cases of parthenogenesis have been observed in captive females, isolated from any males of the same species or related species. The switch from sexual reproduction to asexual reproduction has been observed in the absence of mates and stressful environments in several species such as Aetobatus narinari (eagle ray)2. The occurrence of parthenogenesis in captive S. fasciatum is likely a survival mechanism which ensures the development of future generations for evolutionary purposes.