Chromatin specialization in bivalve molluscs: A leap forward for the evaluation of Okadaic Acid genotoxicity in the marine environment

The CHROMEVALOA Database: A Resource for the Evaluation of Okadaic Acid Contamination in the Marine Environment Based on the Chromatin-Associated Transcriptome of the Mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis

“…First, it helps identify previously unknown chromatin-associated transcripts in the mussel M. galloprovincialis , specially histone variants and chromatin remodeling factors (Figure 4A,B). This aim is motivated by the role of chromatin-associated proteins in the maintenance of genome integrity, most notably in the case of DNA DSB repair [20,23]. Within this context, the generation of new molecular data and its organization in CHROMEVALOAdb helps increase the knowledge about mollusc chromatin, setting up a framework for studying its role in DNA repair.…”

“…The usefulness of chromatin-based genotoxicity tests has already been demonstrated in mammals, where histone H2A.X phosphorylation has been used to assess the extent of DNA repair following exposure of cells to DNA-damaging agents [17,18,19]. Yet, this approach is largely unexplored in those organisms where chromatin information is scarce, including bivalve molluscs [20]. Furthermore, the lack of knowledge regarding gene and protein sequences in these organisms constitutes a very important barrier for the analysis of high-throughput -omic data, especially as it pertains to data assembly and annotation of highly divergent and/or lineage-specialized genes [20,21,22,23].…”

“…Yet, this approach is largely unexplored in those organisms where chromatin information is scarce, including bivalve molluscs [20]. Furthermore, the lack of knowledge regarding gene and protein sequences in these organisms constitutes a very important barrier for the analysis of high-throughput -omic data, especially as it pertains to data assembly and annotation of highly divergent and/or lineage-specialized genes [20,21,22,23]. Even though the genome sequence of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas has been recently published [24], the amount of information available for marine bivalves remains scarce compared to other model organisms in spite of their environmental value.…”

Bivalve Omics: State of the Art and Potential Applications for the Biomonitoring of Harmful Marine Compounds

“…Besides helping ascertain the evolution of the several layers of complexity regulating gene expression during development [66], the characterization of genome-wide patterns of chromatin reorganization in response to environmental stress will provide researchers with a promising approach to detect and quantify levels of different marine compounds by using bivalves as sentinel organisms. Even though these objectives are ambitious, the epigenetic relevance of DNA methylation in oysters [67], the characterization of histones and histone variants in several bivalve molluscs [68,69,70,71] as well as the characterization of their expression profiles and posttranslational modifications in response to the marine biotoxin O kadaic A cid (OA) have been reported [5,72]. …”

Common European harmful algal blooms affect the viability and innate immune responses of Mytilus edulis larvae

“…or Prorocentrum spp [61,74]. Both DA and OA are genotoxic to some degree [19,26] and have been shown to affect the early life stages of some aquatic species [21,41,56,57,73]. In addition, OA is known to inhibit protein phosphatases (PP) [71] which are vital for the cell cycle progression [14].…”