Azimian Zavareh Parnia, Silva Praneeth, Gimhani Nuwanthika, Atukorallaya Devi
Department of Oral Biology, Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3E 0W2, Canada.
Toxics. 2022 Sep 18;10(9):544. doi: 10.3390/toxics10090544.
Alcohol is a common addictive substance and prenatal alcohol exposure could cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and can lead to various birth defects. The small teleost zebrafish () has been identified as a fine animal model in developmental biology and toxicological research. Zebrafish models are widely used to study the harmful effects of alcohol and limited studies are available on the craniofacial and skin malformations associated with FASD. The present study attempts to investigate the effect of alcohol on early zebrafish embryonic development. The effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on neural crest cell-derived organ formation, including pharyngeal dentition, palatal bones and skin melanocytes were analysed. Whole-mount cartilage and bone staining and imaging techniques were applied to determine the effects of alcohol on the above-mentioned structures. The tooth size and shape were affected by alcohol exposure, but the number of teeth in the pharyngeal dentition was not affected. Only first-generation teeth showed size differences. The alcohol-exposed ethmoid bone, which is homologous to the human hard palate, was smaller and less dense in cell arrangement compared with the control medial ethmoid bone. The skin pigmentation defects included reduced melanocyte density, melanin contraction, smaller melanocyte surface area and aberrations in melanosome dispersion, revealing that alcohol significantly influenced and downregulated each and every step of the melanocyte developmental process. This descriptive study summarises the effects of alcohol on the development of neural crest cell-derived structures and highlights the importance of zebrafish in studying the phenotypic characteristics of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
酒精是一种常见的成瘾性物质，孕期酒精暴露可导致胎儿酒精谱系障碍（FASD），并可能引发各种出生缺陷。小型硬骨鱼斑马鱼已被确认为发育生物学和毒理学研究中的优良动物模型。斑马鱼模型被广泛用于研究酒精的有害影响，而关于与FASD相关的颅面和皮肤畸形的研究有限。本研究旨在探讨酒精对斑马鱼早期胚胎发育的影响。分析了孕期酒精暴露对神经嵴细胞衍生器官形成的影响，包括咽齿、腭骨和皮肤黑素细胞。应用整体软骨和骨染色及成像技术来确定酒精对上述结构的影响。牙齿的大小和形状受酒精暴露影响，但咽齿的数量不受影响。只有第一代牙齿显示出大小差异。与对照内侧筛骨相比，暴露于酒精的筛骨与人类硬腭同源，其细胞排列更小且密度更低。皮肤色素沉着缺陷包括黑素细胞密度降低、黑色素收缩、黑素细胞表面积减小以及黑素体分散异常，这表明酒精显著影响并下调了黑素细胞发育过程的每一步。这项描述性研究总结了酒精对神经嵴细胞衍生结构发育的影响，并突出了斑马鱼在研究胎儿酒精谱系障碍表型特征方面的重要性。
