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Your Environment. Your Health.

Final Progress Reports: Boston University: Mechanisms and Impacts of PCB Resistant Fish

Superfund Research Program

Mechanisms and Impacts of PCB Resistant Fish

Project Leader: Mark E. Hahn (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Co-Investigators: Sibel I. Karchner (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Neelakanteswar Aluru (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Grant Number: P42ES007381
Funding Period: 1995-2021

Project-Specific Links

Final Progress Reports

Year:   2019  2016  2004  1999 

The population of Atlantic killifish Fundulus heteroclitus inhabiting the New Bedford Harbor (NBH) Superfund site exhibits heritable, systemic resistance to aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) agonists, including 2,3,7,8 tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). To investigate the mechanism of resistance, researchers measured the relative levels of AHR1, AHR2, and ARNT2 mRNA in whole embryos at different developmental stages and in dissected tissues of adults, comparing expression of these genes in NBH fish with fish from a reference site (Scorton Creek, MA; SC). Whole NBH and SC embryos exhibited no discernable differences in expression of these genes. Adult SC fish expressed AHR2 and ARNT2 mRNA in all tissues examined, while AHR1 was expressed predominantly in brain, heart, and gonad. In contrast, AHR1 mRNA was widely expressed in NBH fish, appearing with unusual abundance in gill, gut, kidney, liver, and spleen. This AHR1 expression pattern was not observed in the lab-reared progeny of NBH fish, demonstrating that constitutive AHR1 expression in gill, gut, kidney, liver, and spleen is not a heritable phenotype. Furthermore, widespread AHR1 expression was not induced in reference-site fish by TCDD or PCB mixtures, suggesting that aberrant AHR1 expression is not simply the normal physiological result of contaminant exposure. These results identify ubiquitous AHR1 expression as an attribute unique to feral NBH F. heteroclitus and represent a first step in determining the regulatory mechanisms underlying this expression pattern and its possible role in TCDD resistance.

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