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Metallothioneins and heat shock proteins in marine mussels as biomarkers of environmental pollution

Exposure of cells to wide variety of stressors, such as heat, heavy metals, organic poison, injuries, hypoxia etc alters the tertiary structure of proteins and leads in cells to general stress response, which consists in transient enhancement of the expression of cytoprotective proteins- heat shock proteins (HSP) and metallothioneins (MT), which act as molecular chaperons or as regulators of heavy-metal homeostasis, respectively. Since both families, as evolutionary conserved proteins are distributed also in animals, in this study the expression of HPS 70 and MTs I/II have been evaluated in tissues of marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis collected along the coast of the Kvarnerian bay in the zones, which are differently exposed to environmental pollution (industrial, urban, peri-urban and turistic area), as well as in mussels exposed to heat or to CdCl2 and HgCl2 in vitro. The level of HSP 70 and MTs expression was detected in mussel gills and in the digestive gland, using Western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry. The data have shown that mussels collected from industrial and urban zones have elevated concentrations of Pb in soft tissues, as well as significantly higher HSP 70 and MTs immunoreactivity in digestive glands. Moreover, mussels collected at zones with different pollution, differently reacted on stressors (heat shock and toxic metals) used in vitro. Conclusion: The data suggests that HPS and MTs may be useful biomarkers of environmental pollutions.

metallothioneins I/II; heat shock protein 70; marine mussels; environmental pollution

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