MICROARRAY APPLICATIONS TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT OF EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS IN WILD DOLPHINS (Tursiops truncatus).

Published

February 1, 2015

Author(s)

Annalaura Mancia, Luigi Abelli, John Kucklick, Teresa Rowles, Randall Wells, Brian C. Balmer, Aleta Hohn, John Baatz, James Ryan

Abstract

It is increasingly common to monitor the marine environment and establish geographic trends of environmental contamination by measuring contaminant levels in animals from higher trophic levels. The health of an ecosystem is largely reflected in the health of its inhabitants. As an apex predator, the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) can reflect the health of near shore marine ecosystems, and reflect coastal threats that pose risk to human health, such as legacy contaminants or marine toxins, e.g. polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brevetoxins. Major advances in the understanding of dolphin biology and the unique adaptations of these animals in response to the marine environment are being made as a result of the development of cell-lines for use in in vitro experiments, the production of monoclonal antibodies to recognize dolphin proteins, the development of dolphin DNA microarrays to measure global gene expression and the sequencing of the dolphin genome. These advances may play a central role in understanding the complex and specialized biology of the dolphin with regards to how this species responds to an array of environmental insults. This work presents the creation, characterization and application of a new molecular tool to better understand the complex and unique biology of the common bottlenose dolphin, and its response to environmental stress and infection. A dolphin oligo microarray representing 24,418 unigene sequences was developed and used to analyze blood samples collected from 69 dolphins during capture-release health assessments at 5 geographic locations (Beaufort, NC, Sarasota Bay, FL, Saint Joseph Bay, FL, Sapelo Island, GA and Brunswick, GA). The microarray was validated and tested for its ability to: 1) distinguish male from female dolphins; 2) differentiate dolphins inhabiting different geographic locations (Atlantic coasts vs the Gulf of Mexico); 3) study in detail dolphins resident in one site, the Georgia coast, known to be

Citation

Marine Genomics

Volume

19

Pub Type

Journals

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DOI Link

Keywords

Gene Expression, toxicology, dolphin, microarray

Citation

Mancia, A. , Abelli, L. , Kucklick, J. , Rowles, T. , Wells, R. , Balmer, B. , Hohn, A. , Baatz, J. and Ryan, J. (2015), MICROARRAY APPLICATIONS TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT OF EXPOSURE TO ENVIRONMENTAL CONTAMINANTS IN WILD DOLPHINS (Tursiops truncatus)., Marine Genomics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margen.2014.11.002 (Accessed December 3, 2024)