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Morphology and Immune-related activities of hemocytes of the mussel Mytilus coruscus (Gould, 1861) from East Sea of Korea

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Abstract

Mytilus coruscus is a cold water mussel commonly occurring on shallow subtidal rocky substrata along the east coast of Korea. Despite its abundance, there have only been a few studies conducted reporting on its biology and ecology. In this study, we investigated the immune-related activities of hemocytes of M. coruscus using light microscopy and flow cytometry. Based on the morphology and cellular activities, 3 types of hemocytes were identified, as granulocytes, hyalinocytes, and blast-like cells. Granulocytes, containing numerous intra-cytoplasmic granules, were intermediate-size (11.8μm) and the most abundant cells (70.2%), while hyalinocytes were the largest cells (16.0μm), with no or few granules in their cytoplasm. The granulocytes exhibited higher lysosomal content, phagocytosis activity and oxidative capacities than the hyalinocytes. In contrast, the blast-like cells were the smallest cells (6.4μm) and displayed a lack of phagocytosis and oxidative capacities. In M. coruscus, the granulocytes appear as the major cell type involved in cellular defense, whereas the blast-like cells may not be directly involved in cell-mediated immune response.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. East Sea Research Institute, KIOST, Uljin, 767-813, Korea

    Hyun-Sung Yang & Choong-Hwan Noh

  2. School of Marine Biomedical Science (BK21 PLUS), Jeju National University, Jeju, 690-756, Korea

    Hyun-Ki Hong, Ludovic Donaghy & Kwang-Sik Choi

  3. Biological Oceanography & Marine Biology Division, KIOST, Ansan, 426-744, Korea

    Heung-Sik Park & Dong-Sung Kim

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  1. Hyun-Sung Yang
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  2. Hyun-Ki Hong
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  3. Ludovic Donaghy
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  4. Choong-Hwan Noh
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  5. Heung-Sik Park
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  7. Kwang-Sik Choi
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Correspondence to Kwang-Sik Choi.

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Yang, HS., Hong, HK., Donaghy, L. et al. Morphology and Immune-related activities of hemocytes of the mussel Mytilus coruscus (Gould, 1861) from East Sea of Korea. Ocean Sci. J. 50, 77–85 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12601-015-0006-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12601-015-0006-4

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