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Chronic PFOS Exposure Disrupts Thyroid Structure and Function in Zebrafish

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Abstract

Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), as a potential endocrine disrupting chemical, is widely detected in the environment, wildlife and human. Currently few studies have documented the effects of chronic PFOS exposure on thyroid in aquatic organisms and the underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. The present study assessed the effect of chronic PFOS exposure on thyroid structure and function using zebrafish model. Zebrafish at 8 h post fertilization (hpf) were exposed to PFOS (250 µg/l) until 120 d post fertilization (dpf). Thyroid hormone (T3 and T4) level, thyroid morphology and thyroid function related gene expression were evaluated in zebrafish at 120 dpf. Our findings demonstrated that chronic PFOS exposure altered thyroid hormone level, thyroid follicular cell structure and thyroid hormone related gene expression, suggesting the validity of zebrafish as an alternative model for PFOS chronic toxicity screening.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Zhouxi Fang for technical help with TEM. This work was supported by the Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LZ13B070001) and the Natural Science Foundation of China (21277104 and 21307096) and the Science and Technology Project of Wenzhou (H20100062 and Y20170147).

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Author notes

  1. Jiangfei Chen, Lidan Zheng and Linjie Tian have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Environmental Safety and Human Health, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, 325035, China

    Jiangfei Chen, Lidan Zheng, Linjie Tian, Nengzhuang Wang, Lei Lei, Qiaoxiang Dong, Changjiang Huang & Dongren Yang

  2. Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310035, China

    Yanbo Wang

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  1. Jiangfei Chen
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  2. Lidan Zheng
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  3. Linjie Tian
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  4. Nengzhuang Wang
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  5. Lei Lei
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  6. Yanbo Wang
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  7. Qiaoxiang Dong
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  8. Changjiang Huang
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  9. Dongren Yang
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Correspondence to Changjiang Huang or Dongren Yang.

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Chen, J., Zheng, L., Tian, L. et al. Chronic PFOS Exposure Disrupts Thyroid Structure and Function in Zebrafish. Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 101, 75–79 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2359-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-018-2359-8

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