Does pufferfish intake tetrodotoxin by brain reward system?

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K07581
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Aquatic life science
• Research Institution: Nagasaki University
• Principal Investigator: SAKAKURA Yoshitaka 長崎大学, 水産・環境科学総合研究科(水産), 教授 (20325682)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 天野 勝文 北里大学, 海洋生命科学部, 教授 (10296428)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: フグ毒 / トラフグ / 食欲 / 成長 / 遺伝子発現

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We hypothesized that tetrodotoxin (TTX) sensing will induce appetite and administration of TTX by food will induce growth in the non-toxic artificially-raised tiger puffer juveniles. After fish were immersed in the TTX solution, gene expression of Neuro-peptide Y (NPY) was quantified by RT-PCR. Higher trend of NPY genes expression in the brain of TTX-sensed fish was detected. When fish were fed with TTX-containing diet for 35 days, fish showed significantly higher growth than control diet. These results supported our hypothesis.

Free Research Field

水産増殖学