Investigating tumor suppression in triploid trout

Graduation date: 2001Previous work (Thorgaard, G. H. et al., Aquatic Toxicology 46:121-126, 1999)\ud showed triploid rainbow trout (0. mykiss) given embryonic carcinogen bath exposures\ud had significant reduction of induced tumors relative to diploids. In the present study,\ud trout were made triploid by thermal shock after fertilization. At age of 5 months they\ud were given dietary carcinogen: aflatoxin B1 (AFB₁) or 7,12-dimethylbenz[a]anthracene\ud (DMBA) for 30 or 120 days. The dietary exposures were at known tumorigenic levels\ud (100, 200 and 300 ppb AFB₁; 250, 500 and 850 ppm DMBA). At about 16 months after\ud fertilization the fish were sacrificed and tumor incidence and multiplicity were assessed.\ud At all levels of carcinogen and in all tumorous organs tumor incidence was lower in the\ud triploid fish. For DMBA-fed fish it was seen that the diploid:triploid incidence ratios\ud ranged from 2.0 to 9.0 and for AFB₁ from 3.1 to 6.0. Weight class analyses dissociated\ud the tumor incidence effects of growth from the effects of triploidy. Weight classes\ud plotted against logit tumor incidence at all doses and durations showed parallel logistic\ud lines. In every case the triploid curve was substantially lower than the diploid curve,\ud showing the independent suppressive effect of triploidy.\ud Fifteen triploid DMBA liver tumors were examined by direct cycle-sequencing\ud of p53 PCR products across the exons 5, 7 and 8 known to contain nearly all human\ud tumor p53 mutations. There were no p53 mutations seen at, or above, the present\ud threshold of detection, (for radiolabeled manual sequencing, under 5% of mutant in\ud normal). Fluorescent sequencing of 15 stomach tumors, also showed no p53 mutations\ud in the hotspot-containing exons. Mutation detection by sequencing the trout Ki-ras1\ud gene, ortholog human KRAS2, showed codons 12, and 61 mutations in DMBA-fed trout\ud liver and stomach tumors. The DMBA liver tumor Ki-ras1 mutation incidence showed\ud no change by ploidy. There was a significant reduction in Ki-ras1 exon 1 mutations in\ud triploid stomach tumors (5% in triploids v. 33% in diploids, Fisher's Exact test p