title: Development of mussel mRNA profiling: Can gene expression trends reveal coastal water pollution?
abstract: Marine bivalves of the genus Mytilus are intertidal filter-feeders commonly used as biosensors of coastal pollution. Mussels adjust their functions to ordinary environmental changes, e.g. temperature fluctuations and emersion-related hypoxia, and react to various contaminants, accumulated from the surrounding water and defining a potential health risk for sea-food consumers. Despite the increasing use of mussels in environmental monitoring, their genome and gene functions are largely unexplored. Hence, we started the systematic identification of expressed sequence tags and prepared a cDNA microarray of Mytilus galloprovincialis including 1714 mussel probes (76% singletons, approximately 50% putatively identified transcripts) plus unrelated controls. To assess the potential use of the gene set represented in MytArray 1.0, we tested different tissues and groups of mussels. The resulting data highlighted the transcriptional specificity of the mussel tissues. Further testing of the most responsive digestive gland allowed correct classification of mussels treated with mixtures of heavy metals or organic contaminants (expression changes of specific genes discriminated the two pollutant cocktails). Similar analyses made a distinction possible between mussels living in the Venice lagoon (Italy) at the petrochemical district and mussels close to the open sea. The suggestive presence of gene markers tracing organic contaminants more than heavy metals in mussels from the industrial district is consistent with reported trends of chemical contamination. Further study is necessary in order to understand how much gene expression profiles can disclose the signatures of pollutants in mussel cells and tissues. Nevertheless, the gene expression patterns described in this paper support a wider characterization of the mussel transcriptome and point to the development of novel environmental metrics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and CRIBI Biotechnology Centre, University of Padova, Via Bassi 58/B, 35131 Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Venier
authors.forename: Cristiano
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: De Pittà
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pallavicini
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marsano
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Varotto
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Romualdi
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dondero
authors.forename: Aldo
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Viarengo
authors.forename: Gerolamo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lanfranchi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D049872:Bivalvia / Q000235:genetics*; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D015870:Gene Expression; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D005843:Geography; D007558:Italy; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D014873:Water Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity; D014876:Water Pollution
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014873:Water Pollutants