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Immunohistochemical characterization and change in location of branchial ionocytes after transfer from freshwater to seawater in the euryhaline obscure puffer, Takifugu obscurus

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Abstract

The obscure puffer Takifugu obscurus is a euryhaline fish species suitable for studying the molecular mechanism of osmoregulation. The distributional changes of branchial ionocytes were detected following the transfer from freshwater (FW) to seawater (SW) based on two main ion transporters, Na+/K+-ATPase (NKA) and Na+/K+/ 2Cl− cotransporter 1 (NKCC1). The mRNA and protein expression levels of NKA and NKCC1 in the gills all increased rapidly in the first four days after transfer to SW. Double immunofluorescence staining showed that NKCC1 and NKA were colocalized in the branchial ionocytes and the immunoreaction of NKCC1 was stronger after transfer. Moreover, following transfer to SW, the number of lamellar ionocytes in the gills is reduced and the number of filament ionocytes is increased significantly. Taken together, these findings indicated that SW transfer of obscure puffer promotes the changes of distribution, function and size of branchial ionocytes.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFD0900200), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20180502), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2017B04214).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Biology, College of Oceanography, Gulou District, Hohai University, No.1 Xikang Road, Nanjing, 210098, People’s Republic of China

    Tie Ding, Yan Shi, Wen Duan, Sufei Hu & Zhe Zhao

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  1. Tie Ding
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  2. Yan Shi
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  4. Sufei Hu
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  5. Zhe Zhao
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Contributions

The study conception was designed by Yan Shi. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Tie Ding, Wen Duan, and Sufei Hu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Tie Ding. The manuscript was revised by Zhe Zhao and all authors commented on the early versions of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yan Shi.

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Ding, T., Shi, Y., Duan, W. et al. Immunohistochemical characterization and change in location of branchial ionocytes after transfer from freshwater to seawater in the euryhaline obscure puffer, Takifugu obscurus. J Comp Physiol B 190, 585–596 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-020-01298-x

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