The phenotypic and behavioral defects can be transferred from zinc-exposed nematodes to their progeny.

In despite of the essential functions of zinc as trace element for humans, toxic effects will be pronounced while organisms are exposed to high levels of zinc. However, whether the multiple biological toxicities caused by zinc exposure could be transferred to progeny is still largely unknown. In the present study, we explored the model organism, Caenorhabditis elegans, to analyze the multiple toxicities from zinc exposure and their possibly transferable properties. Our results indicate that the zinc exposure could result in multiple biological defects by affecting the endpoints of life span, development, reproduction, locomotion behavior and chemotaxis plasticity. Zinc exposure could specially cause the appearance of uncoordinated (UNC) animals. In addition, Zn exposure could result in the stress responses in most of the tissues in exposed nematodes. Moreover, these phenotypic and behavioral toxicities could be transferred from zinc-exposed nematodes to their progeny. The fold changes of hsp16-2-gfp expression in embryos of progeny animals suggest that the zinc toxicity might be deposited in eggs of nematodes. We summarized these defects into two groups according to their transferable properties. Therefore, our data suggest that zinc exposure can result in multiple toxicities and these multiple biological defects can be largely transferred to progeny in C. elegans.