Chlorella diet alters mitochondrial cardiolipin contents differentially in organs of Danio rerio analyzed by a lipidomics approach.

Yu-Jen Chao,Maria Balazova,Yuan-Hao Howard Hsu,Ting-Yuan Wu,Jamie Lin,Wen-Hsin Wu,Yi-Wen Liu,Qun Chen

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0193042

Abstract

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is an important and widely used vertebrate model organism for the study of human diseases which include disorders caused by dysfunctional mitochondria. Mitochondria play an essential role in both energy metabolism and apoptosis, which are mediated through a mitochondrial phospholipid cardiolipin (CL). In order to examine the cardiolipin profile in the zebrafish model, we developed a CL analysis platform by using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Meanwhile, we tested whether chlorella diet would alter the CL profile in the larval fish, and in various organs of the adult fish. The results showed that chlorella diet increased the chain length of CL in larval fish. In the adult zebrafish, the distribution patterns of CL species were similar between the adult brain and eye tissues, and between the heart and muscles. Interestingly, monolyso-cardiolipin (MLCL) was not detected in brain and eyes but found in other examined tissues, indicating a different remodeling mechanism to maintain the CL integrity. While the adult zebrafish were fed with chlorella for four weeks, the CL distribution showed an increase of the species of saturated acyl chains in the brain and eyes, but a decrease in the other organs. Moreover, chlorella diet led to a decrease of MLCL percentage in organs except the non-MLCL-containing brain and eyes. The CL analysis in the zebrafish provides an important tool for studying the mechanism of mitochondria diseases, and may also be useful for testing medical regimens targeting against the Barth Syndrome.

Highlights

Zebrafish is an established vertebrate model for biomedical research due to its embryo transparency, low-cost maintenance, high similarity to human genetics, and feasibility for drugscreening
The CL profile of the larval zebrafish is altered by a chlorella diet To examine the CL contents in the larval zebrafish, and to test whether the CL contents in the larval fish could be changed by the chlorella diet, 9 newly-hatched fish were collected and separated into three groups for feeding starting at the stage of 1-week post fertilization
The CL profile in larval fish fed with standard larval diet contains multiple groups of CL species, and the CL groups display normal distribution on the mass spectrometry spectrum (Fig 1)

Summary

Introduction

Zebrafish is an established vertebrate model for biomedical research due to its embryo transparency, low-cost maintenance, high similarity to human genetics, and feasibility for drugscreening. Except those of the reproduction system, start to function before 5 days post fertilization, which facilitates phenotypic manifestation of genetic disorders early in development. The zebrafish disease models of anemia, leukemia, cancer, heart. Chlorella diet alters cardiolipin in Danio rerio. MY3) to YWL and Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS-MOST JRP 2016/4) to MB. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Methods

Results

Conclusion