<p>Aquatic environments adjacent to industrialized urban centers typically contain anthropogenic chemicals that may cause disruption of endocrine systems and physiological functions. This study investigated whether sites within San Francisco Bay are associated with endocrine disruption in the indigenous fish, shiner perch. The endocrine system that produces cortisol was tested, since it is critical for physiological regulation of stress response, metabolism, immune function and osmoregulation. The cortisol-producing tissue, the interrenal, was also investigated using proteomics technologies to initiate a process of identifying proteins with altered expression and which may therefore be involved in tissue dysfunction. Disrupted cortisol responses were detected in fish from several locations and they were related to certain kinds of contaminants and to changed expression of at least four interrenal proteins, which include heat shock protein 1, transferrin, calreticulin, and calmodulin. Several interrenal proteins were also newly identified. The approaches used herein have strong prospects as bioanalytical screening methodologies in environmental studies. </p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1527426 |
| Date | 22 March 2014 |
| Creators | Zemel, Hayley L. |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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