MJ Caballero

University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria | ULPGC · Department of Morphology

The aquatic environment and the associated fish assemblages are being exposed to an increasing amount of microplastics. Despite the high number of publications on the presence of microplastics in fish, little is known about their uptake, translocation and accumulation within fish organs. Experimental studies on the detection and effects of pristine...

Lipids are biomolecules present in all living organisms that, apart from their physiological functions, can be involved in different pathologies. One of these pathologies is fat embolism, which has been described histologically in the lung of cetaceans in association with ship strikes and with gas and fat embolic syndrome. To assess pathological lu...

Trypanorhyncha are cestodes commonly infecting marine fish. Numerous studies have detailed the biology of Trypanorhyncha species, but information on the pathological changes produced by these parasites is limited. Dusky groupers are keystone species necessary for the preservation of several marine ecosystems. Considering their vulnerable state of c...

Introduction External injuries in elasmobranchs are frequent findings, either due to inter- or intraspecific interactions or as a result of interaction with human activities. However, the resilience of these species to traumatic injury remains poorly understood. This work provides an insight into the clinical presentation, diagnostic imaging, and p...

Introduction: Sea urchin diseases have been documented in several locations worldwide, with reported occurrences of bacterial, protozoan, fungal, and algal infections. Objective: This study aimed to investigate pathogen agents in populations of Arbacia lixula and Paracentrotus lividus along the coast of Gran Canaria Island (Central-East Atlantic,...

Fish exposed to water supersaturated with dissolved gas experience gas embolism similar to decompression sickness (DCS), known as gas bubble disease (GBD) in fish. GBD has been postulated as an alternative to traditional mammals’ models on DCS. Gas embolism can cause mechanical and biochemical damage, generating pathophysiological responses. Increa...

Simple Summary Paratuberculosis (PTB) is a well-known disease with considerable financial impact on the farm industry worldwide. Nevertheless, data regarding the assessment of naturally infected goat herds is limited. The present study describes in detail the observed gross and histological lesions detected in 39 necropsies of goats (15 vaccinated...

Non-migratory bristlemouth fishes (Cyclothone spp.) are the most abundant vertebrates on Earth and play an important role in the biological carbon pump by remineralizing organic carbon in deep ecosystems. Acoustic data and net sampling are often used in combination to estimate fish and zooplankton biomass, but this procedure may be subject to sever...

Ciguatoxins (CTXs) are marine neurotoxins that cause ciguatera poisoning (CP), mainly through the consumption of fish. The distribution of CTXs in fish is known to be unequal. Studies have shown that viscera accumulate more toxins than muscle, but little has been conducted on toxicity distribution in the flesh, which is the main edible part of fish...

The Canary Islands are an active volcanic archipelago. In the last decade, volcanic activity has occurred twice on the youngest and western most islands: El Hierro (submarine eruption) in 2011-12, and La Palma (subaerial eruption) in 2021. 70 fish specimens of different species from El Hierro volcano and 14 from La Palma were necropsied. A notable...

Size, weight, body-mass density and swim bladder measurements of Cyclothone species were analysed during the IDEADOS (Mediterranean Sea, July 2010), Bathypelagic (North Atlantic, May-June 2018) and SUMMER (Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic, September-October 2020), and cruises. Specimens used to analyse size and weight were collected with a Mult...

Este articulo presenta una revisión de la necesidad y situación general del soporte audiovisual para la formación en el ámbito científico técnico universitario dentro del conjunto de las universidades públicas españolas, contextualizado en la exigencia creciente de virtualización, consecuencia de la aceleración continua de la actividad formativa en...

Aim: To investigate the mucoadhesive strength and barrier effect of Esophacare® (Atika Pharma SL, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) in an ex vivo model of gastro-oesophageal reflux. Methods: An ex vivo evaluation through the Falling Liquide Film Technique with porcine esophagi was performed, compared to a positive control (Ziverel®; Norgine, Amsterdam),...

Decompression sickness (DCS) is a clinical syndrome caused by the formation of systemic intravascular and extravascular gas bubbles. The presence of these bubbles in blood vessels is known as gas embolism. DCS has been described in humans and animals such as sea turtles and cetaceans. To delve deeper into DCS, experimental models in terrestrial mam...

Nearly two decades ago, pathologic examination results suggested acoustic factors, such as mid-frequency active naval military sonar (MFAS) could be the cause of acute decompression-like sickness in stranded beaked whales. Acute systemic gas embolism in these beaked whales was published together with enigmatic cystic liver lesions (CLL), characteri...

The Canary Islands are a ciguatoxin (CTX) hotspot with an established official monitoring for the detection of CTX in fish flesh from the authorised points of first sale. Fish caught by recreational fishermen are not officially tested and the consumption of toxic viscera or flesh could lead to ciguatera poisoning (CP). The objectives of this study...

The global whale population has dramatically declined in the past centuries due to anthropogenic abuse, whereas, climate change, ship strikes, entanglements, pollution, and water debris are currently making an enormous impact on the recovery of all whales on the planet. The prostate is recognized as the only male accessory gland in odontocete cetac...

Systematic granulomatosis is a chronic disease that affects the majority of farmed meagre (A. regius). Nutritional imbalances and overcrowding can increase the risk to suffer oxidative stress, and consequently, impact the incidence of granulomatosis. In order to evaluate this, juvenile meagre were fed five isolipidic (16.7%) and isoproteic (49.6%)...

Decompression sickness (DCS) is a widely known clinical syndrome in human medicine, mainly in divers, related to the formation of intravascular and extravascular gas bubbles. Gas embolism and decompression-like sickness have also been described in wild animals, such as cetaceans. It was hypothesized that adaptations to the marine environment protec...

Neobenedenia girellae is considered an epizootic infection for intensively cultured fish species. Particularly, for greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) N. girellae causes high mortality rates and supposes a bottleneck during its on-growing period. Thus, the objective of this work was to describe the skin morphological alterations caused by a N. gi...

Neobenedenia girellae is considered an epizootic infection for intensively cultured fish species. Particularly, for greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) N. girellae causes high mortality rates and supposes a bottleneck during its on-growing period. Thus, the objective of this work was to describe the skin morphological alterations caused by a N. gi...

The use of low fishmeal/fish oil in marine fish diets affects dietary essential fatty acids (EFAs) composition and concentration and, subsequently, may produce a marginal deficiency of those fatty acids with a direct impact on the fish intestinal physiology. Supplementation of essential fatty acids is necessary to cover the requirements of the diff...

Vegetable oils (VO) are being extensively used as lipid sources in marine fish diets, due to the decreased availability of fish oil. The use of VO could induce some imbalances on essential fatty acids (EFAs) with the subsequent well described detrimental effects on fish immunity. EFAs are directly associated with several immune functions, acting as...

Systemic granulomatosis has already been reported in meagre larvae with an adequate feeding protocol and enrichment media preventing its appearance in the first weeks of life. Afterwards, the control of this disease could be prevented through nutritional components of the inert food, being the antioxidants the key to success. For this reason, in th...

Ethoxyquin (EQ; 6-Ethoxy-2,2,4-trimethyl-1,2-dihydroquinoline) has been used as an antioxidant in feed components for pets, livestock and aquaculture. However, possible risks of EQ used in aquafeed for fish health have not yet been characterized. The present study investigated the toxicity and dose-response of subchronic dietary EQ exposure at dose...

Histopathological findings in kidney sections from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) exposed to ethoxyquin (EQ) through their diet for 90 days. Animals exposed to 0.47 mg EQ/kg (EQ 0; A) and 9666 mg EQ/kg (EQ 5; B) show presence of pigmented macrophages aggregates (PMAs) to a different degree. H&E staining, scale bars: 200 μm. Staining with either H...

Mean concentration of ethoxyquin (EQ; μg/kg ww) and ethoxyquin dimer (EQDM; μg/kg ww) in whole body homogenates and muscle samples of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) exposed to graded levels of EQ through their diet for 90 days. (DOCX)

Original scale metabolite profile of liver samples from Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of ethoxyquin (EQ) (Metabolon). (XLSX)

Liver metabolites significantly altered by dietary treatment with increasing levels of EQ (p<0.05; 1wANOVA; Qlucore). (XLSX)

Ingenuity pathway analyses (IPA) of ethoxyquin (EQ)-induced changes on liver proteins in Atlantic salmon. A) 'Canonical Pathways', B) 'Diseases and Bio Functions' and C) 'Tox Functions' enriched with regulated (p<0.05, Qlucore) proteins in liver samples from Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of EQ. D) 'Upstream Reg...

Raw data of growth parameters, body composition, organ weights, organ-somatic indices, blood and plasma measurements and measures of oxidative stress and oxidative DNA damage in livers of Atlantic salmon after 45 (T1) and 90 (T2) days exposure to increasing levels of ethoxyquin. (XLSX)

Raw data for BMDL analysis of critical histological outcomes in liver, spleen and kidneys of Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of ethoxyquin (EQ). Scores in the critical categories were translated into quantal data for analysis. (XLSX)

Summary of lower and upper bound benchmark dose 90% confidence intervals (BMDLs and BMDUs, respectively), and models of critical endpoints used in the evaluation for a critical BMDL. (XLSX)

Original scale protein profile of liver samples from Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of ethoxyquin (EQ) (PROBE). MaxQuant parameters and Qlucore output. (XLSX)

Uniprot gene ontology terms and keywords of all proteins detected in dataset. (XLSX)

Hematological parameters of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) exposed to graded levels of EQ through their diet for 90 days. (DOCX)

Liver metabolites significantly altered compared to EQ0 (p<0.05; 1wANOVA and p<0.05 planned contrasts vs EQ0; Qlucore). (XLSX)

Ingenuity pathway analyses (IPA) of ethoxyquin (EQ)-induced changes on liver metabolites in Atlantic salmon. A) 'Canonical Pathways', B) 'Diseases and Bio Functions', and C) 'Tox Functions' enriched with regulated (p<0.05, Qlucore) metabolites in liver samples from Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of EQ. D) 'Upstr...

Protein groups according to their respective GO terms. (XLSX)

Akaike information criteria of benchmark dose model fittings and lower and upper benchmark dose 90% confidence intervals (BMDLs and BMDUs, respectively) of all measures assessed through benchmark dose modelling. (XLSX)

Histopathological findings in spleen sections from Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) exposed to ethoxyquin (EQ) at 9666 mg EQ/kg through the diet for 90 days. The spleen shows marked subcapsular hemorrhage (arrow) and congestion of the red pulp (asterisk). H&E. Scale bar: 200 μm. (DOCX)

Liver proteins significantly altered compared to EQ0 (p<0.05; 1wANOVA and p<0.05 post-hoc; Qlucore; including entries of mammalian orthologs). (XLSX)

Raw data of the histological evaluation of livers, spleens and kidneys of Atlantic salmon after 90 days dietary exposure to increasing levels of ethoxyquin (EQ). (XLSX)

Systemic granulomatosis is the most frequent disease in juvenile and adult meagre, but studies regarding the first appearance of granulomas in larvae do not exist. In order to evaluate this, meagre larvae were fed four different feeding regimes as follows: RS and RO (rotifer enriched with Easy DHA Selco or Ori‐Green from 3 to 30 dph respectively),...

The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of two forms of mannan oligosaccharides (MOS: Bio-Mos® and cMOS: Actigen®, Alltech Inc, USA) and their combination on greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili) growth performance and feed efficiency, immune parameters and resistance against ectoparasite (Neobenedenia girellae) infection. Fish...

Systemic granulomatosis is a growing disease with a high morbidity, which affects to the majority of farmed meagre (Argyrosomus regius). The impossibility of isolating any infectious agents has hypothesized a nutritional origin of the disease. In order to try to elucidate the nutritional origin of granulomas, juvenile meagre were fed for 15 weeks w...

The use of plant-based feeds warrants the supplementation with selenium (Se) to cover the requirement for Atlantic salmon. Depending on its chemical form, Se is a trace element with a narrow range between requirement and toxicity for most vertebrates. Information on safe upper limit for Atlantic salmon feed supplementation is lacking. Atlantic salm...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of increasing dietary arachidonic acid (ARA) levels (from 1 to 6% of total fatty acids) on European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) juveniles’ growth performance, tissue fatty acid profile, liver morphology as well as long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) biosynthesis, triglyceride and ch...

In order to successfully diversify Mediterranean aquaculture, it is necessary to determine optimum culture conditions of potential candidate species such as greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili). Among culture conditions, rearing temperature is a key factor for achieving optimum growth and maintaining fish welfare. However, little is known about the...

Information about early development after male release lags behind studies of juveniles and adult seahorses, and newborn seahorses, similar in shape to adults, are considered juveniles or fry. During early life, Hippocampus hippocampus present behavioural (shift in habitat, from planktonic to benthic) and morphological changes; for this reasons, th...

The aim of this study was to assess the effects of low levels of dietary fish meal (FM) and fish oil (FO) on disease resistance and gut associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) response after an experimental intestinal infection with V. anguillarum in European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) For that purpose, sea bass juveniles were fed one of four diets...

The present study examined the short and mid-term effects of a rise in temperature from 18 °C to 24 °C on the expression of genes related to the stress response regulation in juveniles of Senegalese sole, Solea senegalensis. The animals were exposed to a temperature increase of 6 °C, after 1 month of acclimation at 18 °C. After this process, sample...

The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of graded levels of dietary arachidonic acid (ARA), supplemented from alternative sources, on fatty acid composition of plasma and head kidney leucocytes of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax). For that purpose, sea bass juveniles were fed four diets containing graded levels of ARA as...

Early weaning of marine fish larvae with dry diets delays gut maturation and reduces growth rates. In juvenile and adult forms of several marine fish species, inclusion of dietary mannan oligosaccharides (MOS) improves gut integrity and functionality, but the effects of MOS inclusion in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata, L.) larval diets have not b...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the combination of maximum replacement of fishmeal (FM) and fish oil (FO) by alternative meals (AM) and oils (AO) to develop nutritious, but more eco-friendly diets for European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) juveniles. European sea bass of 9.8 ± 1.5 g and 9.1 ± 0.5 cm were fed nine isonitrogenous (45% crude p...

The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of graded levels of replacement of fishmeal (FM) and fish oil (FO) by terrestrial meals (TM) and vegetable oils (VO) on gut health of European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) based on gut morphology, gut-associated immune system (GALT) and gut microbiota composition. Reducing the dietary FM...

To describe the distribution of zinc in the retina of a representative marine fish species and to determine whether the intracellular deposition amount correlates with the presentation of the zinc included in the practical diets (organic, inorganic, encapsulated, fish meal and Control diet), we examined the precise localization of endogenous zinc i...

Seven experimental isonitrogenous (50%) and isolipidic (16%) diets with different levels of α-tocopherol acetate (16, 100, 190, 285, 430, 880 and 1300 mg kg− 1) were tested during 72 days to evaluate growth performance, tissue composition, fillet oxidation and liver histology in meagre juveniles, Argyrosomus regius. Growth performance, feed convers...

Omega-3 (n-3) long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) are essential components of the diet of all vertebrates. The major dietary source of n-3 LC-PUFA for humans has been fish and seafood but, paradoxically, farmed fish are also reliant on marine fisheries for fish meal and fish oil (FO), traditionally major ingredients of aquafeeds. Curre...

Despite the interest of meagre (Argyrosomus regius) as a fast-growing candidate for Mediterranean aquaculture diversification, there is a lack of information on nutrition along larval development. Importance of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) and the antioxidant vitamins E and vitamin C has not been investigated yet in this species. Six diets...

The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of 4 g kg⁻¹ dietary mannan oligosaccharides (MOS) inclusion in soybean oil (SBO)- and fish oil (FO)-based diets on the gut health and skin mucosa mucus production of European sea bass juveniles after 8 weeks of feeding. Dietary MOS, regardless of the oil source, promoted growth. The intesti...

This study reports for the first time on European sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax (L.), larvae, the effect of different levels of dietary arachidonic acid (ARA; 20:4n-6) on the expression of genes related to the fish stress response. Copies of mRNA from genes related to steroidogenesis [StAR (steroidogenic acute regulatory protein), c-Fos, and CYP11...

The concept of nutritional programming raises the interesting possibility of directing specific metabolic pathways or functions in juvenile fish, for example, to improve the use of substitutes to fishmeal and oil, and hence to promote sustainability in aquaculture. The aim of the study was to determine effects of early nutritional stimuli of gilthe...