State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
Environ Toxicol Chem. 2011 Aug;30(8):1767-74. doi: 10.1002/etc.571. Epub 2011 May 19.
Metal pollution levels in estuarine and coastal environments have been widely reported, but few documented reports exist of severe contamination in specific environments. Here, we report on a metal-contaminated estuary in Fujian Province, China, in which blue oysters (Crassostrea hongkongensis) and green oysters (Crassostrea angulata) were discovered to be contaminated with Cu and other metals. Extraordinarily high metal concentrations were found in the oysters collected from the estuary. Comparison with historical data suggests that the estuary has recently been contaminated with Cr, Cu, Ni, and Zn. Metal concentrations in blue oysters were as high as 1.4 and 2.4% of whole-body tissue dry wt for Cu and Zn, respectively. Cellular debris was the main subcellular fraction binding the metals, but metal-rich granules were important for Cr, Ni, and Pb. With increasing Cu accumulation, its partitioning into the cytosolic proteins decreased. In contrast, metallothionein-like proteins increased their importance in binding with Zn as tissue concentrations of Zn increased. In the most severely contaminated oysters, only a negligible fraction of their Cu and Zn was bound with the metal-sensitive fraction, which may explain the survival of oysters in such contaminated environments.
河口和沿海环境中的金属污染水平已被广泛报道，但关于特定环境中严重污染的记录很少。在这里，我们报告了中国福建省一个受金属污染的河口，在该河口发现了铜和其他金属污染的蓝牡蛎（Crassostrea hongkongensis）和绿牡蛎（Crassostrea angulata）。从河口采集的牡蛎中发现了极高的金属浓度。与历史数据的比较表明，该河口最近受到了铬、铜、镍和锌的污染。蓝牡蛎中铜和锌的浓度分别高达全身组织干重的 1.4%和 2.4%。细胞碎片是结合金属的主要亚细胞部分，但富含金属的颗粒对铬、镍和铅很重要。随着铜积累量的增加，其分配到胞质蛋白中的量减少。相比之下，随着组织中锌浓度的增加，金属硫蛋白样蛋白在与锌结合方面的重要性增加。在污染最严重的牡蛎中，只有微不足道的一部分铜和锌与金属敏感部分结合，这可能解释了牡蛎在如此污染环境中的生存能力。
