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← All articlesEditorial brief · abstract-levelScore 61/100Confidence medium
biorxiv2026-08-21agingmetabolismtoxicologysex differences

Low-dose microcystin-LR hits senescent killifish in two sexes: shared pck1 loss, divergent mitochondria-adjacent programs

Eight-month-old GRZ Nothobranchius furzeri exposed to 0.5 µg/L microcystin-LR show strongly sex-split transcriptomes (313 DEGs male, 263 female, only 27 shared). Shared space includes strong pck1 downregulation and genes of mitochondrial function, metabolism, ECM, and genome maintenance. Males remodel sarcomere/contractile programs; females remodel vitellogenin/zona pellucida and metabolic reproduction. Aging plus a bloom toxin is not one pathway.

Mito.news · at a glance

Signal profile (abstract-level)

aging · metabolism · toxicology · sex differences

Score 61/100BIORXIVmedium confidenceaging
61
Importance
50
Mito signal
53
Dysfunction
75
Evidence
15
Translational

Editorial signal profile from the abstract (importance score, mito keywords, dysfunction tags, evidence density, translational cues). Not a figure reproduced from the preprint PDF.

Finding. A bloom-relevant sip of microcystin-LR (0.5 µg/L) does not write one ageing transcriptome in turquoise killifish. Old males and old females share only 27 differentially expressed genes. In that slim overlap, pck1 crashes and mitochondrial-function and metabolic genes move. Everywhere else the sexes diverge: male muscle contractile programs versus female egg-coat and vitellogenin programs. Cyanotoxin vulnerability in a senescent vertebrate is sex-shaped.

Why this paper matters

MC-LR literature is young-animal liver. This is old fish, low dose, whole-body, sex-split. The mitochondrial desk keeps the shared pck1/mitochondrial-function module and refuses to average the sexes.

What they actually measured

Whole-body RNA-seq, sex-stratified DE, shared versus unique programs, marker modules.

How to read the score

High fifties to low sixties. Score 61. Confidence is medium.

What to do with it

If you model ageing toxicology or cyanotoxins, split sex first and look at pck1. Do not infer a human advisory from 0.5 µg/L in killifish. The directional implication is that senescent males and females mount almost non-overlapping MC-LR programs around a small mitochondrial-metabolic core.

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Source preprint

Low-Dose Microcystin-LR Elicits Sex-Dimorphic Transcriptomic Responses in Senescent Nothobranchius furzeri: Implications for Cyanotoxin Vulnerability in Aging Vertebrates

10.64898/2026.08.17.745368

Afzal Z, Hatcher C, Kumar D.

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