Molecular bioindicators of pollution in Fish

Abstract

The use of microarrays to assess pollutant responses in aquatic organisms has become widespread. In the field of ecotoxicology, the development of microarrays for fish models has served to advance our understanding of the mechanisms of action of numerous chemicals, including both those that are well studied and those that are emerging, singly in controlled laboratory settings, and in complex mixtures and field settings. This chapter chronicles the advent of using microarrays in the study of fish and provides notable examples of both laboratory and field studies where microarrays were instrumental in answering important contaminant-driven hypotheses. These examples will highlight how microarrays have been effective in defining unexpected actions and pathways of well-studied chemicals and in the toxicological assessment of emerging pollutants including nanomaterials, and whether this technology is useful for defining the response to complex mixtures in field settings. Global transcriptional data sets may help define key events for new state-of-the-art modeling of adverse outcome pathways (AOPs).