Tricyclic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be the primary toxic components of crude oil. Such compounds including phenanthrene are known to have direct effects on cardiac tissue, which lead to malformations during organogenesis in early life stage fish. We tested a suite of 13 alkyl-phenanthrenes to compare uptake and developmental toxicity in early life stage haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) embryos during gastrulation/organogenesis beginning at 2 days post fertilization via passive dosing. The alkyl-phenanthrenes were tested at their solubility limits, and three of them also at lower concentrations. Measured body burdens were linearly related to measured water concentrations. All compounds elicited one or more significant morphological defects or functional impairment, such as decreased length, smaller eye area, shorter jaw length, and increased incidence of body axis deformities and eye deformities. The profile of developmental toxicities appeared unrelated to the position of alkyl substitution, and gene expression of cytochrome 1 a (cyp1a) was low regardless of alkylation. Mortality and sublethal effects were observed below the expected range for baseline toxicity, thus indicating excess toxicity. Additionally, PAH concentrations that resulted in toxic effects here were far greater than when measured in whole crude oil exposures that cause toxicity. This work demonstrates that, while these phenanthrenes are toxic to early life stage fish, they cannot individually account for most of the developmental toxicity of crude oil, and that other compounds and/or mixture effects should be given more consideration.

中文翻译：

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早期生命阶段鱼类中的烷基菲：大西洋黑线鳕（Melanogrammus aeglefinus）胚胎的差异毒性

三环多环芳烃 (PAH) 被认为是原油的主要有毒成分。已知包括菲在内的此类化合物对心脏组织有直接影响，这会导致早期生命阶段鱼类器官发生过程中的畸形。我们测试了一套 13 种烷基菲，以比较黑线鳕 ( Melanogrammus aeglefinus ) 胚胎在受精后 2 天开始的原肠胚形成/器官发生过程中的摄取和发育毒性被动给药。烷基菲在其溶解度极限下进行了测试，其中三种也在较低浓度下进行了测试。测得的身体负荷与测得的水浓度呈线性相关。所有化合物都会引起一种或多种显着的形态缺陷或功能障碍，例如长度缩短、眼面积变小、下巴长度变短，以及体轴畸形和眼畸形的发生率增加。发育毒性的特征似乎与烷基取代的位置和细胞色素 1a ( cyp1a)的基因表达无关) 很低，与烷基化无关。观察到死亡率和亚致死效应低于基线毒性的预期范围，因此表明毒性过大。此外，这里导致毒性作用的 PAH 浓度远高于在导致毒性的整个原油暴露中测量的浓度。这项工作表明，虽然这些菲对早期生命阶段的鱼有毒，但它们不能单独解释原油的大部分发育毒性，应该更多地考虑其他化合物和/或混合物的影响。