Ecotoxicology

, Volume 20, Issue 1, pp 177–186 | Cite as

Differential toxicological effects induced by mercury in gills from three pedigrees of Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum by NMR-based metabolomics

  • Xiaoli Liu
  • Linbao Zhang
  • Liping You
  • Junbao Yu
  • Jianmin Zhao
  • Lianzhen Li
  • Qing Wang
  • Fei Li
  • Chenghua Li
  • Dongyan Liu
  • Huifeng Wu
Article
First Online:
Accepted:

Abstract

Mercury is a hazardous pollutant in the Bohai marine environments due to its high toxicity to the marine organisms and subsequent ecological risk. Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum is one of important sentinel organisms in ‘Mussel Watch Program’ launched in China and therefore used as a bioindicator in marine and coastal ecotoxicology. There are dominantly distributed three pedigrees of clam (White, Liangdao Red and Zebra) in Yantai population endowed with different tolerances to environmental stressors. In this study, gill tissues were collected from both untreated and mercury exposed White, Liangdao Red and Zebra clams, and the extracts were analyzed by NMR-based metabolomics to compare the original metabolomes and the toxicological effects induced by mercury exposure in three pedigrees. The major abundant metabolites in White clam sample were branched-chain amino acids, lactate, alanine, arginine, acetoacetate, glutamate, succinate, citrate, malonate and taurine, while the metabolite profile of Liangdao Red clam sample comprises relative high levels of alanine, arginine, glutamate, succinate and glycogen. For Zebra clam sample, the metabolite profile exhibited relatively high amount of aspartate, acetylcholine and homarine. After 48 h exposure of 20 μg l−1 Hg2+, the metabolic profiles from all the three pedigrees of clams commonly showed significant increases in alanine, arginine, glutamate, aspartate, α-ketoglutarate, glycine and ATP/ADP, and decreases in citrate, taurine and homarine. The unique metabolic differences between the metabolomes of gill tissues from Hg2+-exposed White, Liangdao Red and Zebra clams were found, including elevated acetylcholine and branched-chain amino acids in White clams, and the declined succinate in both White and Liangdao Red samples as well as the declined betaine in Zebra and White clams. Overall, our findings showed the differential toxicological responses to mercury exposure and that White clams could be a preferable bioindicator for the metal pollution monitoring based on the metabolic changes from gill compared with other two (Liangdao Red and Zebra) pedigrees of clams.

Keywords

Manila clam Bioindicator Mercury NMR Metabolomics 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Mark Viant (School of Bioscience, The University of Birmingham) for use of the software ProMetab. This research was supported by The 100 Talents Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, SDSFC (ZR2009CZ008) and in part by CAS innovation key project (KZCX2-YW-Q07-04) and the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams “Representative environmental processes and resources effects in coastal zone”.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Xiaoli Liu
    • 1
    • 2
  • Linbao Zhang
    • 1
    • 2
  • Liping You
    • 1
    • 2
  • Junbao Yu
    • 1
  • Jianmin Zhao
    • 1
  • Lianzhen Li
    • 1
  • Qing Wang
    • 1
  • Fei Li
    • 1
  • Chenghua Li
    • 1
  • Dongyan Liu
    • 1
  • Huifeng Wu
    • 1
  1. 1.Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environment Processes, CAS; Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environment ProcessesYantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese Academy of SciencesYantaiPeople’s Republic of China
  2. 2.The Graduate School of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijingChina

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