Genome-wide gene expression profiling of acute metal exposures in male zebrafish.

To capture global responses to metal poisoning and mechanistic insights into metal toxicity, gene expression changes were evaluated in whole adult male zebrafish following acute 24h high dose exposure to three metals with known human health risks. Male adult zebrafish were exposed to nickel chloride, cobalt chloride or sodium dichromate at concentrations corresponding to their respective 96h LC20, LC40 and LC60 (i.e. 96h concentrations at which 20%, 40% and 60% lethality is expected, respectively). Histopathology was performed on a subset of metal-exposed zebrafish to phenotypically anchor transcriptional changes associated with each metal exposure. Here we describe in detail the contents and quality controls for the gene expression and other data associated with the study published by Hussainzada and colleagues in BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology (Hussainzada et al., 2014) with the data uploaded to Gene Expression Omnibus (accession number GSE50648).