Exploring The Effects And Mechanism Of Action Of Antidepressant Traditional Chinese Prescriptions And Surfactants Based On Zebrafish Sleep Behavior

Depression is a type of nervous system disease, and the traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) possess great advantages over the treatment of depression. However, the mechanism of therapeutic action remains uncertain. Here, we selected seven classical TCM prescriptions and utilized an automatic video-tracking system to monitor the rest/wake behavior of larval zebrafish at 4 days post-fertilization (dpf) for 48 hours. Based on five behavioural parameters and the correlation analyses between TCM prescriptions and the well-known compounds with definite biological targets, we predicted the targets of Gui-Pi-Tang may be y-amino butyric acid (GABA) and glutamate; Tao-Hong-Si-Wu-Tang, Qi-Ju-Di-Huang-Wan and Liu-Jun-Zi-Tang were likely to be related to adrenergic, serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) signaling pathways; Gai-Mai-Da-Zao-Tang and Wen-Dan-Tang may share a similar mechanism of action with two classical antidepressants, amitriptyline and maprotiline, in the therapy of depression. Based on the zebrafish behavioral assessment platform, we can realize an automatic, rapid and high-throughput screening of drugs and compounds. This paper describes the first study to combine TCM research with zebrafish rest/wake behavior in vivo and presents a powerful approach for the discovery of the mechanism of action of TCM prescriptions.Surfactants have been widely utilized in the industry, agriculture and daily life. As a kind of organic pollutant, the toxicities of surfactants to the aquatic organisms have been pain more and more attention. In this study, we explored the effects of three surfactants with different charges on zebrafish larval rest/wake behavior and early development, and three surfactants were anionic SDS, cationic 1227 and nonionic AEO-7, respectively. First of all, we apply an automatic, high-throughput and rapid video-tracking system to observe larval rest/wake behavior for 48 hours and evaluated five behavioral parameters. The results shown 1227 increased but AEO-7 decreased larval locomotor activity, and no obvious effects were detected in SDS-treated groups. Furthermore, after exposing to SDS,1227 and AEO-7, larvae displayed developmental delay, smaller eyes, smaller heads and shorter body length. The AEO-induced alterations were the most pronounced. To explore the mechanism of action, we tested the expressions of ntl, a maker for embryonic epiboly, and krox 20, a gene related to brain development. The whole-mount in situ hybridization indicated the expression patterns of two genes were changed, and quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) shown the expression levels of ntl were increased, but that of krox 20 were decreased in surfactant-treated groups. These data would provide references for ecotoxicological assessments of different types of surfactants with widespread applications, and play a warning role in the discharge of surfactant-polluted waste water.