Metabolic profiling of Mytilus galloprovincialis and its potential applications for pollution assessment

Abstract

Monitoring of the marine environment is crucial for determining the impact of environmental stressors and/or pollution on ecosystem health. Classical assays that traditionally focus on a limited number of selected endpoints have thus far proven to be of limited success in this regard. Here, we apply 1 H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based chemometric analysis to the marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis to investigate changes in the metabolic profile of digestive gland tissue as a response to exposure to nickel and chlorpyrifos, both as single chemicals and as a mixture. The multivariate data was analysed by principal component analysis and partial least-squares discriminant analysis. The major metabolite changes responsible for the spectral differences observed were related to amino acid, nucleotide and methylamine metabolism in all 3 cases. In addition, novel metabolic profiles were associated with exposure to each chemical and the mixture. Nickel produced changes in energy metabolism while chlorpyrifos resulted in an increase in acetylcholine levels. Mussels exposed to a single compound demonstrated a significantly different response to those given the mixture, where a small antagonistic effect was evident. The study demonstrates the potential of NMR-based metabolomics to provide a rapid and cost-effective screening tool for monitoring the aquatic environment.KEY WORDS: Antagonism · Metabonomics · Metabolomics · Mussels · Pollution · Nickel · Chlorpyrifos Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 369: [169][170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179] 2008 molecule metabolites to be considered simultaneously. NMR-based metabolomics is becoming increasingly prevalent in environmental toxicology research, particularly in terrestrial studies (Griffin & Shore 2007). The uses and applications of this technique in marine science to date are limited but are summarised in Viant (2007).Mussels are well-suited to metabolomic analysis for environmental toxicology. They have a wide geographical distribution in both salt and freshwaters and, as sessile, filter-feeding organisms, they are exposed to and bio-accumulate many different classes of environmental contaminants. This, in conjunction with their importance as a food organism to humans, means they are widely used in ecological and bio-monitoring studies (Viarengo & Canesi 1991, Cajaraville et al. 2000. Therefore integrating ecotoxicogenomics-based data derived from metabolomics into environmentally relevant results is likely to be much easier for these species than for many others.In the present study, we applied 1 H-NMR-based metabolomic and chemometric analysis to the marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. Changes in the metabolic profile of digestive gland tissue as a response to exposure to the heavy metal nickel (Ni) and the organophosphorus insecticide chlorpyrifos (Chlp), both singly and as a mixture, were assessed. Both compounds occur in the marine environment and their effects ar...

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“…Therefore, metabolomics can detect differences in the metabolome profile in response to environmental stressors (Cappello et al, 2013;Fasulo et al, 2012;Kwon et al, 2012). It has also been widely applied in multiple areas such as food quality (Tarachiwin et al, 2008), ecotoxicology (Jones et al, 2008) and plant sciences (Kim et al, 2010). Cappello et al (2013) successfully identified metabolic responses to environmental pollution, primarily from exposure to Hg and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), in the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis caged in anthropogenic-impacted and reference sites along the Augusta coastline (Sicily, Italy).…”