The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacted over 2100 km of shoreline along the northern Gulf of Mexico, which coincided with the spawning season of many coastal species, including red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus). Red drum develop rapidly and are sensitive to crude oil exposure during the embryonic and larval periods. This study investigates the predictions from recent transcriptomic studies that cholesterol biosynthetic processes are impacted by oil exposure in fish early life stages. We found that red drum larvae exposed for 72 h to ΣPAH₅₀ 3.55–15.45 µg L⁻¹ exhibited significantly increased pericardial area, a cardiotoxicity metric, but the expression of several genes targeted in the cholesterol synthesis pathway was not affected. However, whole-mount staining revealed significant increases in free cholesterol throughout the larval body (ΣPAH₅₀ 4.71–16.15 µg L⁻¹), and total cholesterol followed an increasing trend (ΣPAH₅₀ 3.55–15.45 µg L⁻¹). Cholesterol plays a critical role in fish embryo development and ion channel function. Therefore, the disruption of cholesterol homeostasis, as observed here, could play a role in the oil toxicity phenotype observed across many fish species.

2010 年深水地平线漏油事件影响了墨西哥湾北部 2100 多公里的海岸线，这恰逢许多沿海物种的产卵季节，包括红鼓鱼( Sciaenops ocellatus )。红鼓鱼发育迅速，在胚胎期和幼虫期对原油暴露敏感。这项研究调查了最近转录组学研究的预测，即胆固醇生物合成过程受鱼类早期生命阶段接触石油的影响。我们发现红鼓幼虫暴露于 ΣPAH ₅₀ 3.55–15.45 µg L ⁻¹ 72 小时表现出显着增加的心包面积，这是一种心脏毒性指标，但在胆固醇合成途径中靶向的几种基因的表达不受影响。然而，整体染色显示整个幼虫体内的游离胆固醇显着增加（ΣPAH ₅₀ 4.71–16.15 µg L ^-1），总胆固醇呈增加趋势（ΣPAH ₅₀ 3.55–15.45 µg L ^-1）。胆固醇在鱼胚胎发育和离子通道功能中起着关键作用。因此，正如这里所观察到的，胆固醇稳态的破坏可能在许多鱼类中观察到的油毒性表型中起作用。