Assessment of Clam Ruditapes philippinarum as Heavy Metal Bioindicators Using NMR‐Based Metabolomics

Abstract

Research Article Assessment of Clam Ruditapes philippinarum as Heavy Metal Bioindicators Using NMR-Based MetabolomicsThere are mainly distributed three pedigrees (White, Liangdao Red, and Zebra) of Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum in Yantai population along the Bohai marine and coast. However, the biological differences to environmental stressors have been ignored in toxicology studies, which could lead to the distortion of biological interpretations of toxicological effects induced by environmental contaminants. In this study, we applied a system biology approach, metabolomics to compare the metabolic profiles in digestive gland from three pedigrees of clam and characterize and compare the metabolic responses induced by mercury in clam digestive gland tissues to determine a sensitive pedigree of clam as a preferable bioindicator for metal pollution monitoring and toxicology research. The most abundant metabolites, respectively, included branched-chain amino acids, alanine, and arginine in White samples, glutamate, dimethylglycine, and glycine in Zebra clams and acetylcholine, betaine, glucose, and glycogen in Liangdao Red clams. After 48 h exposure of 20 mg L À1 Hg 2þ , the metabolic profiles from the three pedigrees of clams showed differentially significant changes in alanine, glutamate, succinate, taurine, hypotaurine, glycine, arginine, glucose, etc. Our findings indicate the toxicological effects of mercury exposure in Manila clams including the neurotoxicity, disturbances in energetic metabolisms and osmoregulation in the digestive glands and suggest that Liangdao Red pedigree of clam could be a preferable bioindicator for the metal pollution monitoring based on the more sensitive classes of metabolic changes from digestive glands compared with other two (White and Zebra) pedigrees of clams.

Pollution status of the Bohai Sea: An overview of the environmental quality assessment related trace metals

“…When the adductor muscle was used as the target organ, White clams could be a preferable bioindicator of the pollution monitoring for dissolved mercury compared with the other two clam species, i.e. Liangdao Red and Zebra (Liu et al, 2011d); while, when digestive gland tissue was used as the target organ, Liangdao Red clams exhibited more sensitive disturbances to the mercury exposure (Liu et al, 2011e). …”

A metabolomic investigation on arsenic-induced toxicological effects in the clam Ruditapes philippinarum under different salinities

“…Polar metabolites in the adductor muscle tissues of clams were extracted by the modified extraction protocol as described previously (Zhang et al, 2011a;Liu et al, 2011a). Briefly, the adductor muscle tissue (ca.…”

An integrated proteomic and metabolomic study on the gender-specific responses of mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis to tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA)

“…Marine bivalves accumulate osmoprotectants or osmolytes such as betaine, homarine and dimethylglycine to maintain osmotic balances and stabilities of cytomembrane under environmental stress (Shen et al, 2002). Zhang et al (2011c) and Liu et al (2010) found the similar phenomenon in bivalve Ruditapes philippinarum exposed to heavy metals.…”