Environmental impacts of chlorpyrifos: Transgenerational toxic effects on aquatic organisms cannot be ignored

Abstract

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) has been extensively used in the world and frequently found in natural environments, might cause a range of environmental issues and pose a health risk to aquatic species. However, investigation of its toxic effects on offspring after parental exposure has been neglected, especially for aquatic organisms such as fish. In the current study, the effects of chronic CPF exposure (3 and 60 μg/L) on adult zebrafish (F0) was investigated to determine its influence on adult reproductive capacity and offspring (F1 and F2). The results showed the existence of CPF both in F0 ovaries and F1 embryos and larvae, indicating that CPF could be transferred directly from the F0 adult fish to F1 offspring. After 90 d exposure, we observed that F0 female fish showed increased proportion of perinucleolar oocyte in the ovaries, decreased proportion of mature oocyte, and decreased egg production, but not in F1 adult. The transcriptomic analysis revealed that the disruption of metabolism during oocyte maturation in the CPF treatment zebrafish might interfere with F0 oocytes development and quality and ultimately influence offspring survival. For the larvae, the parental CPF exposure distinctly inhibited heart rate at 72 and 120 hpf and increased the mortality of F1 but not F2 larvae. The changes of biochemical indicators confirmed a disturbance in the oxidative balance, induced inflammatory reaction and apoptosis in F1 larvae. Furthermore, the changing profiles of mRNA revealed by RNA-seq confirmed an increased susceptibility in F1 larvae and figured out potential disruptions of ROS metabolism, immune system, apoptosis, and metabolism pathways. Taken together, these results show that chronic CPF treatment can induce reproductive toxicity, and parental transfer of CPF occurs in fish, resulting in transgenerational alters in F1 generation survival and transcription that raising concerns on the ecological risk of CPF in the natural environment.

Keywords: Chlorpyrifos; Chronic exposure; Developmental toxicity; Reproductive toxicity; Zebrafish.