PH25 Wildlife Ecotoxicology II
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Thursday
(PH283) Effects of Site and Timing of Egg Injection on the Japanese Quail Embryo.
Lavoie, E1, Quinn, Jr, M1, Ottinger, M1, 1 University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
ABSTRACT- The Japanese quail has long been used in neuroendocrine studies making it an ideal model for toxicological studies of endocrine disrupting chemicals. However, neuroendrocrine studies with the quail have not historically reported mortality associated with egg injection and hormone exposure. Understanding effects of egg injection and measuring the frequency of natural and injection related mortality and deformities are useful since egg injection experiments will likely be employed in regulatory toxicity testing for an embryo dose range finding protocol in avian two generation testing. Our objective was to evaluate effects of site of injection, embryonic age at injection (E4 or E11), and vehicle (sesame, corn, or sunflower oil; Sigma, Inc) on embryonic development. Fertile Japanese quail eggs (n=20/trmt) were untreated (not injected), sham injected, or injected into yolk or albumin with oil (20 
L/egg). Hatchability of untreated fertile eggs ranged from 85-95% across all experiments. For sesame oil, hatchability of sham yolk injected eggs = 75%, yolk injected (E4 or E11) = 62-63%, albumin injected = 59%, and control = 90%. The majority of embryonic mortality occurred between embryonic days 14-17. Similar results were observed for the other oils. These data provide evidence for a consistent impact of injection procedure on the overall viability of embryos. However, type of oil and timing of injection had less effect. Finally, it was interesting to note that most mortality occurred late in embryonic development. (funded in part by Battelle Labs in support of a U.S. EPA contract)
Key words: egg injection, Japanese quail, endocrine disrupting chemicals, embryo development