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A Contribution to the Understanding of Osmoregulation in Two Tooth-Carps Occupying Different Osmotic Niches

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Abstract

The great ecological tolerance of aphaniid tooth-carps (Aphaniidae) suggests that the genetic-based adaptation to divergent osmoregulatory environments may be an important driver of the aphaniid fish diversity. This study was conducted to assess gill mRNA expression levels of two osmoregulatory genes, i.e., the CLC-3 and the Na+/K+-ATPase in two tooth-carps inhabiting the freshwater (FW) spring and salty water (SW) river. The expression pattern of genes was examined by quantitative real-time PCR. The number of ionocytes in the gill tissues was counted and compared using histological sections. The expression of CLC-3 in the FW fishes was 3.4 fold higher than that in the SW specimens, which highlighted the role of CLC-3 as a hyposmotically activated chloride channel. The expression of Na+/K+-ATPase was increased by 5.6 fold in the SW fishes. This upregulation in the SW fishes leads to the excretion of excess ions and maintains the homeostasis. The histological sections demonstrated that the ionocytes were distributed in the interlamellar region of the gill filament and that the average number of ionocytes was more in the SW fishes. This is probably an ecophysiological response to the saline condition of the habitat. The results of this study revealed that the examined osmogenes likely play an essential role in the adaptive responses of the studied killifishes to the variable osmotic conditions.

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Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request. Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Iran. We also thank M. Ebrahimi for his assistance in providing Aphanius sophiae specimens.

Funding

This work was approved by Grant Number 9798 of the second author.

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Authors

Contributions

MM and AT designed the study. AZ, MM, and SS carried out the experiments. MM, SS, and AT contributed to data analysis and discussion. MM and AT wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mina Motamedi.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This work was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Biology Department of the Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman (SBUK-139697).

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Zarei, A., Motamedi, M., Soltanian, S. et al. A Contribution to the Understanding of Osmoregulation in Two Tooth-Carps Occupying Different Osmotic Niches. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Sci 45, 127–134 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40995-020-00981-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40995-020-00981-6

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