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Transgenerational Accumulation of Dietary Consumption of Cadmium in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Location: 33
Mentor: Dr. Josse Cunil
Cadmium (Cd) is a nonessential toxic heavy metal that naturally occurs in the environment as a result of agricultural and industrial activity. With a relatively high biological half-life and potential for dietary exposure, Cd is known to bioaccumulate in various tissues and poses a significant health risk, particularly to marginalized communities. While prior research has evaluated Cd’s neurotoxic effects in model organisms, limited work has examined its transgenerational bioaccumulation and potential long-term health impacts. This study investigates Cd bioaccumulation and inheritance across three generations of wild-type zebrafish (Danio rerio, strain 5D), F0 (direct exposure), F1 (germline exposure), and F2 (epigenetic exposure) to assess the metal’s role as an environmental determinant with transgenerational implications. F0 zebrafish were fed with a commercially available diet (Gemma; Skretting, USA) infused with cadmium chloride (CdCl₂) at 0, 30, and 600 µg/day 14 to 90 days post-fertilization to represent a range of human-relevant exposures. With an experimental design that assesses a control Cd group (0 µg/kg), a low Cd group (30 µg/kg), and a high Cd group (60 µg/kg). Whole adult fish were digested in ultrapure nitric acid, and Cd concentrations were quantified using a QQQ-ICP-MS (Agilent 8900). Method accuracy was confirmed using TORT-3 certified reference material, with results within 2.1% of certified values. The outcome of the mean concentrations of Cd in the F0 generation follow that the 6 control females acquired 0.0659 mg/kg ± 0.0145, the 6 control males acquired 0.0627 mg/kg ± 0.0153, the 6 low females acquired 0.2642 mg/kg ± 0.1239, and the 6 low males acquired 0.2870 mg/kg ± 0.0993 with a positive correlation between Cd concentration and bioaccumulation but no significant correlation between Cd accumulation and sex for the F0 generation. Ongoing analysis of F1 and F2 tissues will assess persistence of Cd and its potential long-term health effects. These findings contribute to understanding Cd’s role as an environmental risk factor of transgenerational toxicological risk.
