{"id":74189,"date":"2025-04-09T14:08:12","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T12:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=74189"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:05:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:05:54","slug":"spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight: Hot waters, shrinking fish"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Jona Rada<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Millions of creatures live in Earth\u2019s oceans, rivers, and other water bodies. Scientists have wondered how such organisms respond to rising temperatures caused by global warming. Mantha Lamprousi, a PhD student in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/dorrity\/\">Dorrity Group<\/a> at EMBL Heidelberg, is studying what happens to zebrafish, a freshwater species native to Southeast Asia, when they develop into adults at high temperatures.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As one can see from the image above, something gets a bit \u2018fishy\u2019 when the temperature increases. Zebrafish seem to develop malformed bodies when exposed to temperatures higher than in their natural habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This observation motivated Lamprousi to investigate which cellular processes and cell types in zebrafish are affected by temperature changes. She found out that zebrafish that lack a protein called Hsp47 develop shorter bodies when raised at high temperatures. Hsp47 is a part of a special protein network that helps other proteins acquire their normal state. \u201cIt belongs to a class of molecules known as \u2018chaperones&#8217;,\u201d Lamprousi said, \u201cIt helps other proteins fold properly and attain functional forms.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hsp47 helps modify the fish&#8217;s connective tissue, which plays a crucial role in spine development and function. Temperature increases might tamper with Hsp47, thus changing the interplay between Hsp47 and connective tissue, leading to fish developing shorter bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It remains to be investigated whether reversing the environmental conditions for Hsp47-lacking fish during their development, e.g. by cooling down the water, would reverse the effects on body length as well. For now, Lamprousi is excited about these new molecular findings, which can advance investigations of how changing environmental temperatures will influence life in our waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EMBL scientists investigate how zebrafish bodies change when grown at higher temperatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":74195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17591],"tags":[819,55,13070,19669,11022,931],"embl_taxonomy":[19209,9796],"class_list":["post-74189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-climate-change","tag-development","tag-dorrity","tag-sciwriclub","tag-spotlight","tag-zebrafish","embl_taxonomy-dorrity-group","embl_taxonomy-embl-heidelberg"],"acf":{"vf_locked":false,"vfwp-news_embl_taxonomy":[19209,9796],"featured":true,"show_featured_image":false,"field_target_display":"embl","field_article_language":{"value":"english","label":"English"},"article_intro":"<p>EMBL scientists investigate how zebrafish bodies change when grown at higher temperatures<\/p>\n","related_links":[{"link_description":"Dorrity Group","link_url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/groups\/dorrity\/"},{"link_description":"Molecular Systems Biology Unit","link_url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/research\/units\/molecular-systems-biology\/"}],"source_article":false,"in_this_article":false,"press_contact":"None","article_translations":false,"languages":""},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"bd910dd7-0cda-4618-8bfa-d37fbda8438e\";i:2;s:36:\"9d07f491-7230-45f6-9d2f-f6059744a420\";}","parents":[],"name":["Dorrity Group"],"slug":"dorrity-group","description":"What &gt; Molecular Systems Biology &gt; Dorrity Group"},{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"b14d3f13-5670-44fb-8970-e54dfd9c921a\";i:1;s:36:\"89e00fee-87f4-482e-a801-4c3548bb6a58\";i:2;s:36:\"ab46b6d4-71d8-49f8-b2f4-b326d4c8ea4e\";}","parents":[],"name":["EMBL Heidelberg"],"slug":"embl-heidelberg","description":"Where &gt; All EMBL sites &gt; EMBL Heidelberg"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Spotlight: Hot waters, shrinking fish | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"EMBL scientists investigate how zebrafish bodies change when grown at higher temperatures\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spotlight: Hot waters, shrinking fish | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EMBL scientists investigate how zebrafish bodies change when grown at higher temperatures\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-09T12:08:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-31T09:05:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Featured_Mantha_ZebrafishHSP4_1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guest author(s)\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Guest author(s)\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Guest author(s)\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/b4d9366b2ebe691c4015c64c3619205b\"},\"headline\":\"Spotlight: Hot waters, shrinking fish\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-09T12:08:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-31T09:05:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/\"},\"wordCount\":276,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science-technology\/spotlight-hot-waters-shrinking-fish\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Featured_Mantha_ZebrafishHSP4_1.png\",\"keywords\":[\"climate change\",\"development\",\"Dorrity\",\"sciwriclub\",\"spotlight\",\"zebrafish\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Science &amp; 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