Bodinier, Charlotte

Dubansky, Benjamin

Galvez, Fernando

Garcia, Tzintzuni I.

Miles, Scott

Pilley, Chet

Raghunathan, Vandana

Rice, Charles D.

Roach, Jennifer L.

Walker, Nan

Walter, Ronald B.

Whitehead, Andrew

English

PubMed

LSU Scholarly Repository (Louisiana State Univ.)

Louisiana State University LSU Scholarly Repository Faculty Publications Department of Biological Sciences 3-20-2012 Reply to Jenkins et al.: Evidence for contaminating oil exposure is closely linked in space and time to biological effects Andrew Whitehead Louisiana State University Benjamin Dubansky Louisiana State University Charlotte Bodinier Louisiana State University Tzintzuni I. Garcia Texas State University Scott Miles Louisiana State University See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.lsu.edu/biosci_pubs Recommended Citation Whitehead, A., Dubansky, B., Bodinier, C., Garcia, T., Miles, S., Pilley, C., Raghunathan, V., Roach, J., Walker, N., Walter, R., Rice, C., & Galvez, F. (2012). Reply to Jenkins et al.: Evidence for contaminating oil exposure is closely linked in space and time to biological effects. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109 (12) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1200429109 This Letter to the Editor is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Biological Sciences at LSU Scholarly Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of LSU Scholarly Repository. For more information, please contact ir@lsu.edu. Authors Andrew Whitehead, Benjamin Dubansky, Charlotte Bodinier, Tzintzuni I. Garcia, Scott Miles, Chet Pilley, Vandana Raghunathan, Jennifer L. Roach, Nan Walker, Ronald B. Walter, Charles D. Rice, and Fernando Galvez This letter to the editor is available at LSU Scholarly Repository: https://repository.lsu.edu/biosci_pubs/1242 LETTERReply to Jenkins et al.: Evidence forcontaminating oil exposure is closelylinked in space and time tobiological effectsOur original article (1) linked exposure of resident killifish tocontaminating oil from the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spillwith significant biological responses, including genome expres-sion, protein expression, and tissue morphology. Given decadesof laboratory studies on the effects of crude oil in many species,including fish, and after extensive field studies following theExxon Valdez spill, some of the responses we captured are rec-ognized as diagnostic of exposure to, and effects from, the toxiccomponents of weathered crude oil (e.g., ref. 2). Jenkins et al. (3)raise two main objections to our study. They assert that theanalytical chemistry was not consistent with detected biologicalresponses, and that chemicals other than DWH-derived crude oilpolyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) could have caused the ob-served biological responses. PAHs are quickly metabolized byvertebrate animals (4); therefore, it is not surprising that chem-ical analyses of tissues showed little differences among sites andtime points. The hydrophobicity of PAHs also explains whyconcentrations in water were low, tending to accumulate insediments. It is in the heavily contaminated sediments of GrandeTerre, LA (GT), relative to other sites, that the most notabledifferences were observed during the study, consistent with GTbeing the only of our six field sites that was contaminated byDWH oil. Ultimately, sediments were the main reservoir ofcontaminating oil following the Exxon Valdez spill (2). We drewattention to this point in our original publication (1). It is im-portant to emphasize that we integrated multiple types of data torigorously document the location and timing of spilled oil con-tamination, including analytical chemistry of water, tissues, andsediments, along with satellite imagery and photographic evi-dence. These data clearly indicate that, of our six field sites, onlythe GT site was contaminated with spilled oil, and the oil arrivedafter our first sampling time point, but before our second sam-pling time point (Fig. 1 in ref. 1). Our observed biologicalresponses coincided with the timing and the location of oilcontamination. Chemicals other than PAHs, such as dioxins andpolychlorinated biphenyls, may induce similar biological re-sponses, but to our knowledge, there exists no evidence of apolychlorinated biphenyl or dioxin spill event that occurred atthe GT field site only, within 2 mo after our preevent baselinedata measurement, and coincident with the arrival of contami-nating oil.Andrew Whiteheada,1,2, Benjamin Dubanskya, Charlotte Bodiniera,Tzintzuni I. Garciab, Scott Milesc, Chet Pilleyd, VandanaRaghunathane, Jennifer L. Roacha, Nan Walkere, Ronald B.Walterb, Charles D. Ricef, and Fernando GalvezaaDepartment of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University,Baton Rouge, LA 70803; bDepartment of Chemistry and Bio-chemistry, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666; cDe-partment of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University,Baton Rouge, LA 70803; dCoastal Studies Institute, LouisianaState University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; eDepartment of Ocean-ography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, BatonRouge, LA 70803; and fDepartment of Biological Sciences, Clem-son University, Clemson, SC 296341. Whitehead A, et al. (2011) Genomic and physiological footprint of the DeepwaterHorizon oil spill on resident marsh fishes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 10.1073/pnas.1109545108.2. Peterson CH, et al. (2003) Long-term ecosystem response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.Science 302:2082–2086.3. Jenkins KD, Branton MA, Huntley S (2012) CYP1A expression fails to demonstrateexposure–response relationship. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:E678.4. Schlenk D, et al. (2008) Biotransformation in fishes. The Toxicology of Fishes, eds DiGiulio RT, Hinton DE (CRC, Boca Raton, FL), pp 153–234.Author contributions: A.W., B.D., C.B., T.I.G., S.M., C.P., V.R., J.L.R., N.W., R.B.W., C.D.R.,and F.G. wrote the paper.The authors declare no conflict of interest.1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: awhitehead@ucdavis.edu.2Present address: Department of Environmental Toxicology, University of California, Davis,CA 95616.www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1200429109 PNAS | March 20, 2012 | vol. 109 | no. 12 | E679Downloaded at TROY H MIDDLETON LIBRARY on September 29, 2021 

Reply to Jenkins et al.: Evidence for contaminating oil exposure is closely linked in space and time to biological effects

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Reply to Jenkins et al.: Evidence for contaminating oil exposure is closely linked in space and time to biological effects

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