Department of Life Sciences, Università di Trieste, P.le Valmaura, 9, Trieste, Italy.
Environ Sci Technol. 2010 Nov 1;44(21):8276-83. doi: 10.1021/es102213f.
Seasonal seawater temperature increases define optimal growth conditions for Dinoflagellate species which can reach high concentrations in water column and also in filter-feeding organisms like Mytilus galloprovincialis. Commonly produced by Dinophysis and Prorocentrum spp., okadaic acid (OA) and its analogues are responsible for the Diarrheic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) syndrome in humans. Closure of shellfishing grounds is therefore recommended by the EU when DSP toxin levels in shellfish exceed 16 μg OA 100 g(-1) flesh. Despite not being responsible for casualties either in humans or mussels, DSP outbreaks are considered natural events causing health and economic issues due to the frequency of their occurrence. Since gene expression studies offer a wide range of different solutions, we used a mussel cDNA microarray to evaluate gene expression changes in the digestive gland of mussels fed for five weeks with OA-contaminated nutrient. Among the differentially expressed genes we observed a general up-regulation of transcripts coding for stress proteins, proteins involved in cellular synthesis, and a few not annotated proteins. Overall, at the first time point analyzed we identified 58 candidate transcripts for OA-induced stress in mussels, half of which have unknown function. In this paper we present the first gene expression analysis performed on Mediterranean mussels exposed to okadaic acid. The characterization of these transcripts could be useful for the identification of an early physiological response to OA exposure.
季节性海水温度升高为甲藻物种定义了最佳的生长条件，这些物种可以在水柱和滤食性生物（如贻贝）中达到高浓度。通常由甲藻和原甲藻属产生的 okadaic 酸 (OA) 及其类似物是导致人类腹泻性贝类中毒 (DSP) 综合征的原因。因此，当贝类中的 DSP 毒素水平超过 16μgOA100g(-1)肉时，欧盟建议关闭贝类养殖场。尽管 OA 既不会导致人类或贻贝死亡，也不会导致其生病，但由于其频繁发生，DSP 暴发被认为是会引发健康和经济问题的自然事件。由于基因表达研究提供了广泛的不同解决方案，我们使用贻贝 cDNA 微阵列来评估在被 OA 污染的营养物中喂养五周的贻贝消化腺中的基因表达变化。在所观察到的差异表达基因中，我们观察到编码应激蛋白、参与细胞合成的蛋白质和一些未注释蛋白质的转录物普遍上调。总的来说，在分析的第一个时间点，我们确定了贻贝中 58 个候选转录物对 OA 诱导的应激，其中一半具有未知功能。在本文中，我们首次对暴露于 okadaic 酸的地中海贻贝进行了基因表达分析。这些转录物的特征描述对于识别对 OA 暴露的早期生理反应可能很有用。
