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Toxic Assessment of Cadmium Based on Online Swimming Behavior and the Continuous AChE Activity in the Gill of Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

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Abstract

The cadmium (Cd) contamination in the aquatic environment has attracted more and more attention due to its toxicity characteristics, e.g., accumulation in the environment, non-degradability, and the potential threat to the ecosystem. In this research, in order to illustrate the potential threat of heavy metal Cd to aquatic organisms, the online swimming behavior and the continuous acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity in the gill of Zebrafish (Danio rerio) in 48 h exposure of cadmium chloride (CdCl2) (4.26 mg/L (0.1 TU, toxic unit), 42.6 mg/L (1.0 TU), and 85.2 mg/L (2.0 TU)) are investigated. The behavior responses of D. rerio based on behavior strength (BS) have obvious dose-effect relationship, and lower BS values could be observed in the dark period at 13–21 h and 37–45 h in all treatments. The circadian rhythm could be observed even in all treatments (0.1, 1.0, and 2.0 TU), and the rhythm was disrupted with 1.0 TU at the end of the experiment whereas the lower (0.1 TU) and higher (2.0 TU) levels showed clear rhythms. These results suggested that the online BS values could illustrate the toxicity of CdCl2 directly. The AChE activity in the gill is strongly inhibited by CdCl2 based on the continuous sample results during 48 h exposure. The cross-correlation results using DCCA show a high correlation (r > 0.5) with extreme significance (p < 0.01), which suggest that the exposure in CdCl2 can affect the AChE activity of D. rerio, and then damage the transduction signal due to neurotoxicity, which may induce decrease of swimming behavior, loss of coordination, and other kinds of behavior changes.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (21107135) and the Oversea High-level Talent Project of Ji’nan (2013041). Z.M.R and W.L.W conceived and designed the study. X.Z, H.W.P., and H.H.Y. performed the experiments and wrote the manuscript. B.X.R. and W.L.W. made the data analysis. H.W.P. and Z.M.R made the revision according to the reviewers’ comments. All authors gave final approval for publication. We thank Prof. Tae-Soo Chon from Pusan National University for polishing the English of the manuscript. We also thank our reviewers for constructive comments to improve our manuscript.

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  1. Hongwei Pan, Xu Zhang, and Baixiang Ren contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Ji’nan, 250014, People’s Republic of China

    Hongwei Pan, Baixiang Ren, Zongming Ren & Weiliang Wang

  2. Institute of Environment and Ecology, Shandong Normal University, Ji’nan, 250014, People’s Republic of China

    Hongwei Pan, Baixiang Ren, Zongming Ren & Weiliang Wang

  3. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Ji’nan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Xu Zhang

  4. School of Life Science, Shandong University, Ji’nan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Huanhuan Yang

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  1. Hongwei Pan
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Pan, H., Zhang, X., Ren, B. et al. Toxic Assessment of Cadmium Based on Online Swimming Behavior and the Continuous AChE Activity in the Gill of Zebrafish (Danio rerio). Water Air Soil Pollut 228, 355 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-017-3540-0

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