By: Maria C. Gutierrez
Mussels are some of earth’s most efficient biological
indicators of water pollution. Their filter feeding causes contaminants to
accumulate in their tissues, mainly in their digestive gland and reproductive
glands. Among these contaminants are endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in
the marine mussel Mytilus edulis. In
a study done by the School for the Environment of the University of Massachusetts
in Boston Massachusetts, scientists observed that, at just low levels of these
EDCs, male mussels experience feminization, gender reversal, and therefore
reproductive complications. (Blalock, et al., 2018) The mechanism of how this
occurs was unknown, so scientists performed several experiments to identify the
adverse outcome pathway which causes these adverse effects. The first experiment
consisted of three water baths with the same number of mussels in each. Each
water bath had increasing amounts of endocrine disrupting compounds and, as
shown in figure 1, proved the feminization of male mussels the more they were exposed to the EDCs.
 |
| Figure 1: 1Results of the RT-qPCR sex identification assay for mussels exposed to 5 ng/L and 50 ng/L EE2 for 39 days. (Blalock, et al, 2018) |
Another
experiment consisted of performing RNA reverse transcriptase with the mussels’
RNA. The scientists successfully identified most of the genes that are involved
with the adverse outcome pathway. With the knowledge of these genetic biomarkers, scientists can now
detect where there is a large number of EDCs, and other contaminants that may
use this same adverse outcome pathway in mussels, to help save them and help
identify heavily polluted coastal areas.
References: Blalock, B.J., Robinson, W.E., Loguinov, A., Vulpe, C.D., Krick, K.S., Poynton, H.C. 2018 Transcriptomic and Network Analyses Reveal Mechanistic-Based Biomarkers of Endocrine Disruption in the Marine Mussel, Mytilus edulis. Environ. Sci. Technol. 52, 16, 9419-9430
Comments
Post a Comment