PARENT SESSION
PT2 - Endocrine Disruption
Tuesday, 19 November 2002
8:00 AM to 6:30 PM
Exhibit Hall
(P575) The use of Hybridisation Protection Assays(HPA) for detecting endocrine disruption in fish on a standard 96hr effluent monitoring study.
HANDLEY, JOHN*,1, SEWELL, IAN1, HARRISON, NICOLA2, MORRIS, CERI2, 1 SAFEPHARM LABORATORIES, DERBY, UK2 MOLECULAR LIGHT TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH LTD, CARDIFF, UK
ABSTRACT- The increasing awareness of endocrine disruption has led to the development of additional assays which can be used as an add on feature to standard laboratory tests. This poster presents data from effluent monitoring trials with fish using a standard 96-Hour exposure method. Specific hybridisation protection assays (HPAs) are used to measure vitellogenin (vtg) and vitelline envelope proteins (vep) mRNA transcripts. Expression of these genes is compared with that of a control gene, b-actin. The effects of effluents on vtg and vep gene expression are monitored in two fish species rainbow trout (Onchorrynchus mykiss) and fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). The use of such a screening test would enable the potential for detection of potential endocrine disruption effects in effluents when conducting TIE and TRA studies.
Key words: ENDOCRINE DISRUPTION, EFFLUENT MONITORING, VITELLOGENIN, GENE EXPRESSION