Publications by authors named "Ryoko Abe"

Juvenile hormone (JH), together with ecdysone, regulates molting, metamorphosis, growth, and reproduction in arthropods. The effects of its analogs used as insecticides on nontarget species are of concern. Since JH and JH analogs (JHAs) induce male offspring in daphnids, which generally reproduce by parthenogenesis, short-term JH activity screening assay (JHASA) using the male offspring ratio as an endpoint has been developed as a detection method for JHA.

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Juvenile hormone (JH) are a family of multifunctional hormones regulating larval development, molting, metamorphosis, reproduction, and phenotypic plasticity in arthropods. Based on its importance in arthropod life histories, many insect growth regulators (IGRs) mimicking JH have been designed to control harmful insects in agriculture and aquaculture. These JH analogs (JHAs) may also pose hazards to nontarget species by causing unexpected endocrine-disrupting (ED) effects such as molting and metamorphosis defects, larval lethality, and disruption of the sexual identity.

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Short-term pulsed exposure tests have been increasingly used to evaluate the ecotoxicity of pollutants of which concentrations vary over time in the field. In pulsed exposure, time-weighted average (TWA) concentration is often used as an index of exposure. However, there have been few studies to demonstrate whether TWA concentration can be used to evaluate the effect of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on the daphnids.

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Principles of concentration addition and independent action have been used as effective tools to predict mixture toxicity based on individual component toxicity. The authors investigated the toxicity of a pharmaceutical mixture composed of the top 10 detected active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in the Tama River (Tokyo, Japan) in a relevant concentration ratio. Both individual and mixture toxicities of the 10 APIs were evaluated by 3 short-term chronic toxicity tests using the alga Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata, the daphnid Ceriodaphnia dubia, and the zebrafish Danio rerio.

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Juvenile hormone (JH) and JH agonists have been reported to induce male offspring production in various daphnid species including Daphnia magna. We recently established a short-term in vivo screening assay to detect chemicals having male offspring induction activity in adult D. magna.

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Juvenile hormone (JH) and JH agonists have been shown to induce male offspring production in various daphnids, including Daphnia magna using OECD TG211. The critical period (about 1h) for JH action on ova in the parent's ovary to induce male offspring is existing at 7-8h later from ovulation. Therefore, we considered that adult D.

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The chronic toxicity of 12 compounds of parabens and their chlorinated by-products was investigated using 7-day Ceriodaphnia dubia test under static renewal condition in order to generate information on how to disinfect by-products of preservatives that are discharged in aquatic systems. The mortality and inhibition of reproduction tended to increase with increasing hydrophobicity and decreased with the degree of chlorination of parabens. The EC50 values for mortality, offspring number, and first brood production ranged between 0.

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A novel measurement system to determine oxygen consumption rates via respiration in migrating Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has been developed. A signal equalization system was adapted to detect oxygen in a chamber with one fish, because typical electrochemical techniques cannot measure respiration activities for migrating organisms. A closed chamber was fabricated using a pipet tip attached to a Pt electrode, and a columnar Vycor glass tip was used as the salt bridge.

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Chemicals released into the environment have the potential to affect various species and it is important to evaluate such chemical effect on ecosystems, including aquatic organisms. Among aquatic organisms, Daphnia magna has been used extensively for acute toxicity or reproductive toxicity tests. Although these types of tests can provide information on hazardous concentrations of chemicals, they provide no information on their mode of action.

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