Growth Hormone Mediated Regulation of Osmoregulation in Euryhaline Teleosts

Abstract

Within the multitude of fish species that exist on our planet, there are a certain number that possess the unique ability to live in both freshwater (FW) and seawater (SW) environments. This ability, known as euryhalinity, is limited to a relatively small number of species, thus making it a prime target for scientific research into osmoregulation, due to the uniqueness of this ability. It has been shown previously that growth hormone (GH) plays an important role in regulating this ability, and in this work, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) were used as models to examine the expression of specific osmoregulatory genes in response to SW transfer and GH exposure, and to examine the signaling mechanisms used by GH to facilitate any changes. We found that GH utilizes specific cell signaling pathways to facilitate the transition between FW and SW in both Rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon.