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Larval zebrafish use olfactory detection of sodium and chloride to avoid salt-water

View ORCID ProfileKristian J. Herrera, View ORCID ProfileThomas Panier, View ORCID ProfileDrago Guggiana-Nilo, View ORCID ProfileFlorian Engert
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.19.258061
Kristian J. Herrera
1Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
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  • For correspondence: kjherrera23@gmail.com
Thomas Panier
2Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Institut de Biologie Paris-Seine (IBPS), Laboratoire Jean Perrin (LJP), 4 Place Jussieu, F-75005, Paris, France
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Drago Guggiana-Nilo
3Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology, Synapses - Circuits - Plasticity, Munich, Germany
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Florian Engert
1Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Abstract

Salinity levels constrain the habitable environment of all aquatic organisms. Zebrafish are freshwater fish that cannot tolerate high salt environments and would, therefore, benefit from neural mechanisms that enable the navigation of salt gradients to avoid high salinity. Yet, zebrafish lack epithelial sodium channels, the primary conduit land animals use to taste sodium. This suggests fish may possess novel, undescribed mechanisms for salt detection. In the present study, we show that zebrafish, indeed, respond to small temporal increases in salt by reorienting more frequently. Further, we use calcium imaging techniques to identify the olfactory system as the primary sense used for salt detection, and we find that a specific subset of olfactory receptor neurons encodes absolute salinity concentrations by detecting monovalent anions and cations. In summary, our study establishes that zebrafish larvae have the ability to navigate, and thus detect salinity gradients, and that this is achieved through previously undescribed sensory mechanisms for salt detection.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted August 20, 2020.
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Larval zebrafish use olfactory detection of sodium and chloride to avoid salt-water
Kristian J. Herrera, Thomas Panier, Drago Guggiana-Nilo, Florian Engert
bioRxiv 2020.08.19.258061; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.19.258061
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Larval zebrafish use olfactory detection of sodium and chloride to avoid salt-water
Kristian J. Herrera, Thomas Panier, Drago Guggiana-Nilo, Florian Engert
bioRxiv 2020.08.19.258061; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.19.258061

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