d the sensitivity and utility of toxicity testing (Nuwaysir et al., 1999; Waters and Fostel, 2004; Calzolai et al., 2007; Schirmer et al., 2010; Hahn, 2011; Kim et al., 2015). Changes in an organism’s transcriptome or proteome in response to an introduced toxin can reveal biomarkers that are sensitive indicators on the presence of the toxin at concentrations that are beneath that which generate outwardly discernible effects of toxicity on the Caspase 10 Inhibitor manufacturer organism (Daston, 2008; Hook et al., 2014). Nevertheless, to effectively harness these molecular markers, approaches are needed which will classify these markers as indicators of exposure to a toxin and its presence inside the environment, versus markers that indicate that the toxin will not be only present but is also causing deleterious effects around the subject organism. These markers of exposure versus impact can be distinguished by phenotypic anchoring, i.e., connecting sublethal molecular modifications to higher-level whole organism, population, or ecological outcomes (Tennant, 2002; Paules, 2003; Daston, 2008; Hook et al., 2014). Frameworks including adverse outcome pathways (Ankley et al., 2010; OECD, 2013) attempt to use phenotypic anchoring to hyperlink molecular events to detrimental effects at the whole-organism level, as a result identifying markers of impact (as opposed to exposure). So as to identify sensitive molecular biomarkers of copper exposure, we previously investigated the concentrationresponsive molecular modifications linked with copper exposure within the mussel embryo-larval assay by creating expression data from pools of larvae exposed to a range of ten copper concentrations (Hall et al., 2020). By identifying dose-responsive transcripts and comparing lowest observed transcriptional EC50 with larger level physiological outcomes (regular and abnormal improvement), we have been capable to define sensitive markers of copper response, or early warning indicators which are detectable before the onset of morphological abnormality. Sensitive markers mainly showed repressed expression, and integrated genes involved in biomineralization/shell formation, metal binding, and improvement. Development genes were similarly downregulated in response to low concentrations of copper in prior research on juvenile red abalone Haliotis rufescens, postlarval scallops (Argopecten purpuratus), and early developmental stages from the oyster Crassostrea gigas (Zapata et al., 2009; Silva-Aciares et al., 2011; Sussarellu et al., 2018). Additionally, copper-induced down-regulation of iron and zinc binding stressprotein transcripts was observed previously in juvenile abalone (Silva-Aciares et al., 2011).The transcriptomic analysis of Hall et al. (2020) was performed on pooled larval samples, representative of all of the larvae that had been present inside the culture vessel, and this pool would have included a combination of standard and abnormal larvae, the proportions of which had been related to the prevailing copper concentration. Though this method has utility in relating bulk gene expression modifications to copper Bax Activator manufacturer concentration it will not address the granularity that is definitely related with this EC50 variety of assay. The basis of this and all EC50 assays is to calculate the proportion of a test population that do or don’t exhibit some variety of detrimental phenotype in response for the introduction of some toxic perturbant. Here we sought to leverage this granularity and as an alternative of profiling a pool of each of the larvae in an assay, we sought to sub-sample the larvae in accordance with wh