Hi All,

I'm an undergraduate researcher doing a toxicology study utilizing eggs and developing embryos of the Fathead Minnow (P. promelas), and I have come up on a bit of a problem. That being: I believe that I am seeing effects from the toxicant, but I'm not entirely sure -- I think I am seeing abnormal heart development, but I haven't been able to find a picture of larval hearts from stages 25 to 27.

Can anyone help me out? I'd be greatly appreciative!

Thanks,
Jamie

Hi All,

I'm an undergraduate researcher doing a toxicology study utilizing eggs and developing embryos of the Fathead Minnow (P. promelas), and I have come up on a bit of a problem. That being: I believe that I am seeing effects from the toxicant, but I'm not entirely sure -- I think I am seeing abnormal heart development, but I haven't been able to find a picture of larval hearts from stages 25 to 27.

Can anyone help me out? I'd be greatly appreciative!

Thanks,
Jamie

Can you generate images of your control fathead embryos? I always try to have images of controls either reared in parallel or beforehand to serve as a reference.

I can certainly try. If I can't with this batch, I'll rear some next week and take photos.

I do have the EPA document "Prehatching development of the Fathead Minnow Pimephales promelas Rafinesque" at my disposal, and it's incredibly useful, but it's terribly difficult to visualize hearts when the embryos themselves are clear, the hearts are clear, the eggshells are clear, and the blood is often mostly clear! I'm staging them on a black background, which helps, but it's still really very hard to see what I'm looking at.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try that.

Jamie

I can certainly try. If I can't with this batch, I'll rear some next week and take photos.

I do have the EPA document "Prehatching development of the Fathead Minnow Pimephales promelas Rafinesque" at my disposal, and it's incredibly useful, but it's terribly difficult to visualize hearts when the embryos themselves are clear, the hearts are clear, the eggshells are clear, and the blood is often mostly clear! I'm staging them on a black background, which helps, but it's still really very hard to see what I'm looking at.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try that.

Jamie

You made need to play with lighting as well to see heart better. Have you considered sacrificing a few, embedding them in paraffin, then slicing for use on slides. Would enable use of dyes / stains targeting heart muscle.