The novel brominated flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) has become a widespread environmental pollutant. However, the target tissue and toxicity of DBDPE are still not clear. In the current study, female zebrafish were exposed to 1 and 100 nM DBDPE for 28 days. Chemical analysis revealed that DBDPE tended to accumulate in the brain other than the liver and gonad. Subsequently, tandem mass tag-based quantitative proteomics and parallel reaction monitoring verification were performed to screen the differentially expressed proteins in the brain. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that DBDPE mainly affected the biological process related to muscle contraction and estrogenic response. Therefore, the neurotoxicity and reproductive disruptions were validated via multilevel toxicological endpoints. Specifically, locomotor behavioral changes proved the potency of neurotoxicity, which may be caused by disturbance of muscular proteins and calcium homeostasis; decreases of sex hormone levels and transcriptional changes of genes related to the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad-liver axis confirmed reproductive disruptions upon DBDPE exposure. In summary, our results suggested that DBDPE primarily accumulated in the brain and evoked neurotoxicity and reproductive disruptions in female zebrafish. These findings can provide important clues for a further mechanism study and risk assessment of DBDPE.
Keywords: decabromodiphenyl ethane; estrogenic response; muscle contraction; parallel reaction monitoring; quantitative proteomics.