Fish Physiology and Biochemistry

, Volume 37, Issue 4, pp 919–927 | Cite as

Nitric oxide inhibited the melanophore aggregation induced by extracellular calcium concentration in snakehead fish, Channa punctatus

  • Saikat P. Biswas
  • Nikhil V. Palande
  • Arun G. Jadhao
Article
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Abstract

We studied the role of nitric oxide (NO) and extra-cellular Ca2+ on the melanophores in Indian snakehead teleost, Channa punctatus. Increase of Ca2+ level in the external medium causes pigment aggregation in melanophores. This pigment-aggregating effect was found to be inhibited when the external medium contained spontaneous NO donor, sodium nitro prusside (SNP) at all the levels of concentration tested. Furthermore, it has been observed that SNP keeps the pigment in dispersed state even after increasing the amount of Ca2+. In order to test whether NO donor SNP causes dispersion of pigments or not is checked by adding the inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, N-omega-Nitro-l-arginine (L-NNA) in the medium. It has been noted that the inhibitor L-NNA blocked the effect of NO donor SNP causing aggregation of pigments. In that way NO is inhibiting the effect of extracellular Ca2+, keeping the pigment dispersed.

Keywords

Melanophores Nitric oxide Calcium Snakehead fish Color 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

This study is supported by the grants from the UGC [32-512/2006(SR)] and DST [SR/SO/AS-09/2006] Government of India to AGJ.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  • Saikat P. Biswas
    • 1
  • Nikhil V. Palande
    • 1
  • Arun G. Jadhao
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of ZoologyRTM Nagpur University CampusNagpurIndia

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