ABSTRACT
A steady climb in toxicant-induced adverse health outcomes is not surprising considering the rising environmental presence of emerging contaminants, concomitant with the persistent environmental and body burden of heavy metals and legacy organic pollutants. Many of these toxicants are classified as endocrine-disrupting chemicals capable of interfering with endogenous hormonal function, as well as reproduction, neurodevelopment, and metabolic function. Exposure to environmental toxicants, whether legacy or emergent, can induce disease outcomes that persist to indirectly exposed and unexposed generations. Fish species are frequently used to model the mechanisms underlying heritable toxicant-induced disease, due to factors including inexpensive maintenance, rapid generation time, and ease of exposure. This chapter reviews and presents the challenges of this research in a fish model, and health outcomes in subsequent generations following parental exposure to dioxins, PCBs, PAHs, pharmaceuticals and personal care products, heavy metals, BPA, hormones, steroids, pesticides, herbicides, PFAS, radiation, and other toxicants. Despite the growing evidence of multigenerational health effects of many contaminants, it is clear that further mechanistic and epigenetic analysis is needed to interpret existing phenotypic data and understand implications for human and fish health.
