Ngu Mee S, Vanselow Daniel J, Zaino Carolyn R, Lin Alex Y, Copper Jean E, Beaton Margaret J, Orsini Luisa, Colbourne John K, Cheng Keith C, Ang Khai C
Department of Pathology, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, PA, USA; Jake Gittlen Laboratories for Cancer Research, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, PA, USA.
Department of Biology, Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada.
Sci Total Environ. 2025 Jan 1;958:177930. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177930. Epub 2024 Dec 12.
Daphnia are keystone species of freshwater habitats used as model organisms in ecology and evolutionary biology. Their small size, wide geographic distribution, and sensitivity to chemicals make them useful as environmental sentinels in regulatory toxicology and chemical risk assessment. Biomolecular (-omic) assessments of responses to chemical toxicity, which reveal detailed molecular signatures, become more powerful when correlated with other phenotypic outcomes (such as behavioral, physiological, or histopathological) for comparative validation and regulatory relevance. However, the lack of histopathology or tissue phenotype characterization of this species presently limits our ability to assess cellular mechanisms of toxicity. Here, we address the central concept that interpreting aberrant tissue phenotypes requires a basic understanding of species normal microanatomy. We introduce the female and male DaphniaHistology Reference Atlas (DaHRA) for the baseline knowledge of Daphnia magna microanatomy. We also include developmental stages of female D. magna in the atlas. This interactive web-based resource of adult D. magna features overlaid vectorized demarcation of anatomical structures whose labels comply with an anatomical ontology created for this atlas. We demonstrate the potential utility of DaHRA for toxicological investigations by presenting aberrant phenotypes of acetaminophen-exposed D. magna. We envision DaHRA to facilitate the future integration of molecular and phenotypic data from the scientific community as we seek to understand how genes, chemicals, and environment interactions determine organismal phenotype.
水蚤是淡水生境中的关键物种，在生态学和进化生物学中用作模式生物。它们体型小、地理分布广且对化学物质敏感，因此在监管毒理学和化学风险评估中作为环境哨兵很有用。当与其他表型结果（如行为、生理或组织病理学结果）相关联以进行比较验证和监管相关性分析时，对化学毒性反应的生物分子（组学）评估能揭示详细的分子特征，变得更具说服力。然而，目前该物种缺乏组织病理学或组织表型特征描述，这限制了我们评估毒性细胞机制的能力。在此，我们阐述一个核心概念，即解释异常组织表型需要对物种正常微观解剖学有基本了解。我们推出了雌性和雄性水蚤组织学参考图谱（DaHRA），以提供大型溞微观解剖学的基础知识。图谱中还包括雌性大型溞的发育阶段。这个基于网络的大型溞成体交互式资源具有叠加的矢量化解剖结构划分，其标签符合为此图谱创建的解剖本体。我们通过展示对乙酰氨基酚暴露的大型溞的异常表型，证明了DaHRA在毒理学研究中的潜在用途。我们设想DaHRA将促进科学界未来整合分子和表型数据，因为我们试图了解基因、化学物质和环境相互作用如何决定生物体表型。
