Uptake and diverse effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on the metabolic activity of Elliptio complanata measured by calorespirometry

✍ Scribed by Marcos A. Cheney; Karen Birdsall; Jerome J. Kukor

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 130 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0730-7268
• DOI: 10.1002/etc.5620200513

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are important contaminants of world water resources, with effects on aquatic life. Metabolic responses to short‐term acute toxicities of naphthalene, anthracene, and chrysene were investigated in the freshwater bivalve mollusk Elliptio complanata using differential scanning calorespirometry coupled with uptake and scanning electron microscopy. Comparing the uptakes of naphthalene, anthracene, and chrysene with that of inulin, which is known to occupy only extracellular space, showed that all compounds studied were taken up. The PAHs studied had diverse effects on the metabolic activity of E. complanata. Naphthalene and, to a lesser degree, chrysene caused stimulation of heat rates, possibly due to uncoupling of oxidative metabolism. Differential scanning calorespirometry coupled with studies of rates of oxygen consumption by the gill tissue exposed to the PAHs showed similar diverse patterns of respiratory rate stimulation and inhibition. Analysis of results of scanning electron microscopy suggested that irreversible damage to the gill tissue occurred in the presence of anthracene but not in the presence on naphthalene or chrysene. The batch calorespirometric method coupled with uptake and spectroscopy proved to be a useful technique to assess the toxicity of PAHs on the control of energy flux in gills of a freshwater bivalve mollusk.