Toxicity of triphenyltin chloride to the rotifer Brachionus koreanus across different levels of biological organization.

Abstract

Although triphenyltin (TPT) compounds are ubiquitous pollutants in urbanised coastal environments in Asian regions, their toxicities to marine organisms are still poorly known. This study was designed to investigate the toxicity of triphenyltin chloride (TPTCl) on the rotifer Brachionus koreanus across different levels of biological organisation. Firstly, we concurrently performed a 24 h static-acute toxicity test and a 6-day semi-static multigenerational life-cycle test using the rotifer. Our results demonstrated that the 24-h median lethal concentration of TPTCl for the rotifer was 29.6 μg/L and the 6-day median effect concentration, based on the population growth inhibition, was 3.31 μg/L. Secondly, we examined the expression of 12 heat shock protein (hsp) genes, four glutathione S-transferase (GST) genes, one retinoid X receptor (RXR) gene and 13 cytochrome P450 (CYP) genes in the rotifers after exposure to 20 µg/L TPTCl for 24 h. Among these studied genes, hsp90α2, GST-O and CYP3045C1 were the most significantly up-regulated genes with a relative expression level up to 32.9, 4.4 and 62.6 folds, respectively. The expression of these three genes in the rotifers showed an increasing trend in the first few hours of TPTCl exposure, peaked at 3 h (hsp90α2 and GST-O) and 12 h (CYP3045C1) respectively, and then gradually returned to a lower level at 24 h. Such up-regulations of hsp and GST genes probably offer cellular protection against the TPT-mediated oxidative stress while the accelerated induction of CYP genes possibly facilitates the detoxification of this toxicant in the rotifer.