Individual and group behavioral responses to nutritional state and context in a social fish.

Understanding how animal collectives and societies form and function is a fundamental goal in animal biology. To date, research examining fish shoaling behavior has focused mostly on the general principles and ecological relevance of the phenomeon, while the ways in which physiological state (e.g.

Exposure to acute waterborne cadmium caused severe damage on lipid metabolism of freshwater fish, revealed by nuclear lipid droplet deposition in hepatocytes of rare minnow.

Cadmium (Cd) is a widely distributed aquatic toxic heavy metal with the potential to disrupt fish metabolism; however, more research is needed to clarify the underlying mechanisms. In the present study, rare minnows (Gobiocypris rarus) were used to detect the effects of cadmium on freshwater fish lipid metabolism and its underlying mechanism by histopathological observation, measurement of serum and liver biochemical indexes, and analysis of gene expression in terms of lipid oxidation, synthesis and transport. Here, severe damage, such as cytoplasmic lipid droplet (LD) accumulation, ectopic deposition of LDs, and the appearance of nuclear LDs (nLDs), was detected after exposure to 2.

Effects of subchronic exposure to waterborne cadmium on H-P-I axis hormones and related genes in rare minnows (Gobiocypris rarus).

The H (hypothalamic)-P (pituitary)-I (interrenal) axis is critical in the stress response and other activities of fish. To further investigate cadmium (Cd) toxicity on the H-P-I axis and to identify its potential regulatory genes in fish, the adult female rare minnows (Gobiocypris rarus) were exposed to subchronic (5weeks) levels of waterborne Cd in the present study. This kind of treatment caused dose-dependent decline in fish growth, with significance in the high dose group (100μg/L).

Transcriptome profiling analysis of rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus) gills after waterborne cadmium exposure.

Rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus) is a widely used experimental fish in risk assessments of aquatic pollutants in China. Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most toxic heavy metals in the world; however, few studies have used fish gills, a multi-functional organ. In this study, we characterized the differential expression of adult female rare minnow gills after sub-chronic waterborne Cd (75μg/L CdCl2) exposure for 35d.

[Toxic effects of CdSe/ZnS QDs to zebrafish embryos].

The toxic effects of CdSe/ZnS QDs on zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos at different developmental stages were investigated in this study. The voluntary movement frequency, body length, hatching rate, mortality and malformation rate, SOD activities, MDA contents, mRNA expression of metallothionein (MT) and heat stress protein 70 (Hsp70) were used as indicators. The results showed that the EC50 was 316.

Silk structure and degradation.

To investigate the structure of silk and its degradation properties, we have monitored the structure of silk using scanning electron microscopy and frozen sections. Raw silk and degummed raw silk were immersed in four types of degradation solutions for 156 d to observe their degradation properties. The subcutaneous implants in rats were removed after 7, 14, 56, 84, 129, and 145 d for frozen sectioning and subsequent staining with hematoxylin and eosin (H.