Cadmium and Zinc Permeability of Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) Embryonic Chorion ('03)

Rachelle Hasson and Rona Nishikawa

If one knows the concentrations of zinc and cadmium that fish are exposed to, what does that say about the concentrations that are absorbed by the fish and thus ingested by humans? Our project uses a species of fish commonly used in the laboratory for toxicology studies, Zebrafish, as a model for typical invertebrate absorption.  ICPAES is used for it's simplicity, high resolution, low detection limit and sensitivity which were important due to the size of embryos; fourteen embryos take ups 25 uL of volume.  It is found that Cadmium is absorbed more readily by the Zebrafish than zinc, nearly by a factor of 3:1.   This may be the reason cadmium is considered by the literature to be more toxic.  There is much evidence that both elements are absorbed by the fish in lower quantities than the actual doses.  This finding should be noted by researchers. for their toxicology studies may be skewed by the higher absorption rates for one compound compared with another.