Ecosystems Research Division, U. S. EPA , 960 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30605, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2015 Mar 3;49(5):3091-100. doi: 10.1021/es505054f. Epub 2015 Feb 9.
The application of 'omics tools to biologically based monitoring and surveillance of aquatic environments shows considerable promise for complementing chemical monitoring in ecological risk assessments. However, few of the current approaches offer the ability to sample ecologically relevant species (e.g., fish) in a way that produces minimal impact on the health of the organism(s) under study. In the current study we employ liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to assess the potential for skin mucus-based metabolomics for minimally invasive sampling of the fathead minnow (FHM; Pimephales promelas). Using this approach we were able to detect 204 distinct metabolites in the FHM skin mucus metabolome representing a large number of metabolite classes. An analysis of the sex specificity of the skin mucus metabolome showed it to be highly sexually dimorphic with 72 of the detected metabolites showing a statistically significant bias with regard to sex. Finally, in a proof-of-concept fashion we report on the use of skin mucus-based metabolomics to assess exposures in male and female fathead minnows to an environmentally relevant concentration of bisphenol A, a nearly ubiquitous environmental contaminant and an established endocrine active chemical.
“组学”工具在基于生物学的水生环境监测和监测中的应用，为补充生态风险评估中的化学监测提供了很大的前景。然而，目前的方法很少能够以对研究生物的健康影响最小的方式对具有生态相关性的物种（如鱼类）进行采样。在本研究中，我们采用液相色谱串联质谱（LC-MS/MS）来评估基于皮肤黏液代谢组学的方法是否可以用于对黑头呆鱼（Pimephales promelas）进行微创采样。使用这种方法，我们能够在黑头呆鱼的皮肤黏液代谢组中检测到 204 种不同的代谢物，代表了大量的代谢物类别。对皮肤黏液代谢组的性别特异性分析表明，它具有高度的性别二态性，其中 72 种检测到的代谢物在性别方面存在统计学上的显著偏差。最后，我们以概念验证的方式报告了使用基于皮肤黏液的代谢组学来评估环境相关浓度的双酚 A（一种几乎无处不在的环境污染物和已确定的内分泌活性化学物质）对雄性和雌性黑头呆鱼的暴露情况。
