A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Heritability, Environmental Effects, and Genetic and Phenotypic Correlations of Oxidative Stress Resistance-Related Enzyme Activities During Early Life Stages in Atlantic Salmon
Authors: Kahar S, Debes PV, Vuori KAM, Vaha JP, Vasemagi A
Publisher: SPRINGER
Publication year: 2016
Journal: Evolutionary Biology
Journal name in source: EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Journal acronym: EVOL BIOL
Volume: 43
Issue: 2
First page : 215
Last page: 226
Number of pages: 12
ISSN: 0071-3260
eISSN: 1934-2845
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-016-9368-5
Abstract
Oxidative stress (OS) may pose important physiological constraints on individuals, affecting trade-offs between growth and reproduction or ageing and survival. Despite such evolutionary and ecological importance, the results from studies on the magnitude of individual variation in OS resistance and the underlying causes of this variation such as genetic, environmental, and maternal origins, remain inconclusive. Using a high throughput methodology, we investigated the activity levels in three OS resistance-related enzymes (superoxide dismutase, SOD; glutathione reductase, GR; glutathione S-transferase, GST) during the early life stages of 1000 individuals from 50 paternal half-sib families in two populations of Atlantic salmon. Using animal mixed models, we detected the presence of narrow-sense heritability for SOD and GST; that for GST differed between populations due to differences in environmental variance. We found support for the presence of common environmental variation, including maternal effects, for only GR. Using a bivariate animal model, we detected a positive environmental correlation between activity levels of SOD and GST but were unable to detect an additive genetic correlation. Our results complement previous heritability findings for levels of reactive oxygen species or OS resistance by demonstrating the presence of heritability for OS-related enzyme activities. Our findings provide a foundation for future work, such as investigations on the evolutionary importance of variation in enzyme activities. In addition, our findings emphasise the importance of accounting for developmental stage, environmental variance, and kin relationships when investigating the OS-response at the enzyme activity level.
Oxidative stress (OS) may pose important physiological constraints on individuals, affecting trade-offs between growth and reproduction or ageing and survival. Despite such evolutionary and ecological importance, the results from studies on the magnitude of individual variation in OS resistance and the underlying causes of this variation such as genetic, environmental, and maternal origins, remain inconclusive. Using a high throughput methodology, we investigated the activity levels in three OS resistance-related enzymes (superoxide dismutase, SOD; glutathione reductase, GR; glutathione S-transferase, GST) during the early life stages of 1000 individuals from 50 paternal half-sib families in two populations of Atlantic salmon. Using animal mixed models, we detected the presence of narrow-sense heritability for SOD and GST; that for GST differed between populations due to differences in environmental variance. We found support for the presence of common environmental variation, including maternal effects, for only GR. Using a bivariate animal model, we detected a positive environmental correlation between activity levels of SOD and GST but were unable to detect an additive genetic correlation. Our results complement previous heritability findings for levels of reactive oxygen species or OS resistance by demonstrating the presence of heritability for OS-related enzyme activities. Our findings provide a foundation for future work, such as investigations on the evolutionary importance of variation in enzyme activities. In addition, our findings emphasise the importance of accounting for developmental stage, environmental variance, and kin relationships when investigating the OS-response at the enzyme activity level.
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