Browsing by Author "Kwok, Kevin WH"

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Open Access
Parental dietary seleno-L-methionine exposure and resultant offspring developmental toxicity.
(Aquatic toxicology (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2016-01) Chernick, Melissa; Ware, Megan; Albright, Elizabeth; Kwok, Kevin WH; Dong, Wu; Zheng, Na; Hinton, David E
Selenium (Se) leaches into water from agricultural soils and from storage sites for coal fly ash. Se toxicity causes population and community level effects in fishes and birds. We used the laboratory aquarium model fish, Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes), an asynchronous breeder, to determine aspects of uptake in adults and resultant developmental toxicity in their offspring. The superior imaging properties of the model enabled detailed descriptions of phenotypic alterations not commonly reported in the existing Se literature. Adult males and females in treatment groups were exposed, separately and together, to a dry diet spiked with 0, 12.5, 25, or 50 μg/g (dry weight) seleno-L-methionine (SeMet) for 6 days, and their embryo progeny collected for 5 days, maintained under controlled conditions and observed daily for hatchability, mortality and/or developmental toxicity. Sites of alteration included: craniofacial, pericardium and abdomen (Pc/Ab), notochord, gall bladder, spleen, blood, and swim bladder. Next, adult tissue Se concentrations (liver, skeletal muscle, ovary and testis) were determined and compared in treatment groups of bred and unbred individuals. No significant difference was found across treatment groups at the various SeMet concentrations; and, subsequent analysis compared exposed vs. control in each of the treatment groups at 10 dpf. Increased embryo mortality was observed in all treatment groups, compared to controls, and embryos had a decreased hatching rate when both parents were exposed. Exposure resulted in significantly more total altered phenotypes than controls. When altered phenotypes following exposure of both parents were higher than maternal only exposure, a male role was suggested. The comparisons between treatment groups revealed that particular types of phenotypic change may be driven by the sex of the exposed parent. Additionally, breeding reduced Se concentrations in some adult tissues, specifically the liver of exposed females and skeletal muscle of exposed males. Detailed phenotypic analysis of progeny from SeMet exposed parents should inform investigations of later life stages in an effort to determine consequences of early life exposure.
Open Access
Silver nanoparticle toxicity is related to coating materials and disruption of sodium concentration regulation.
(Nanotoxicology, 2016-11) Kwok, Kevin WH; Dong, Wu; Marinakos, Stella M; Liu, Jie; Chilkoti, Ashutosh; Wiesner, Mark R; Chernick, Melissa; Hinton, David E
Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been increasingly commercialized and their release into the environment is imminent. Toxicity of AgNP has been studied with a wide spectrum of organisms, yet the mechanism of toxicity remains largely unknown. This study systematically compared toxicity of 10 AgNPs of different particle diameters and coatings to Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) larvae to understand how characteristics of AgNP relate to toxicity. Dissolution of AgNPs was largely dependent on particle size, but their aggregation behavior and toxicity were more dependent on coating materials. 96 h lethal concentration 50% (LC50) values correlated with AgNP aggregate size rather than size of individual nanoparticles. Of the AgNPs studied, the dissolved Ag concentration in the test suspensions did not account for all of the observed toxicity, indicating the role of NP-specific characteristics in resultant toxicity. Exposure to AgNP led to decrease of sodium concentration in the tissue and increased expression of Na(+)/K(+ )ATPase. Gene expression patterns also suggested that toxicity was related to disruption of sodium regulation and not to oxidative stress.