engleski

Evaluation of the Mytilus galloprovincialis Lam. gill and digestive gland metallothionein as a biomarker of metal exposure in a field study

In the present study metallothionein (MTs) content was determined by a spectrophotometric method in the gills and the digestive gland of of the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis collected at four coastal locations in the Kaštela Bay (Croatia) and compared with Cd, Cu and Zn concentrations in the heat-treated cytosolic fraction. Generally, MTs concentrations in the digestive gland were about three times higher than those in the gills and showed positive correlation with Zn concentrations. Gills MTs were highly correlated with Cu. Although trends of MTs values at the locations investigated were similar for both organs, significant differences in MTs content were observed only for gills if MTs were expressed on the wet tissue weight basis. However, significant differences were observed for both organs if MTs data were expressed on the cytosolic protein content basis. A discriminatory factor (DF), which serves to determine the number of significant differences between the sampling sites, was calculated for MTs levels in the both organs. Digestive gland and gills showed different DFs for MT levels: 2.29 and 2.50, respectively. In conclusion, both mussel gill and digestive gland metallothioneins could be useful to survey metal exposure in coastal marine areas, but gill MT showed a higher discriminatory power as indicated by a higher DF. Acknowledgements: This study was carried out within the project No. 154063 supported by Norwegian Research Council.

metallothionein; metals; Mytilus galloprovincialis; CROWAT

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