title: Response of the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas, Thunberg 1793, to pesticide exposure under experimental conditions.
abstract: Pesticide run-off into the ocean represents a potential threat to marine organisms, especially bivalves living in coastal environments. However, little is known about the effects of environmentally relevant concentrations of pesticides at the individual level. In this study, the suppression subtractive hybridisation technique was used to discover the main physiological function affected by a cocktail of three pesticides (lindane, metolachlor and carbofuran) in the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas. Two oyster populations exposed to different pollution levels in the wild were investigated. The pesticide concentrations used to induce stress were close to those found in the wild. In a time course experiment, the expression of three genes implicated in iron metabolism and oxidative stress as well as that of two ubiquitous stress proteins was examined. No clear regulation of gene or protein expression was found, potentially due to a low-dose effect. However, we detected a strong site- and organ-specific response to the pesticides. This study thus (1) provides insight into bivalve responses to pesticide pollution at the level of the transcriptome, which is the first level of response for organisms facing pollution, and (2) raises interesting questions concerning the importance of the sites and organs studied in the toxicogenomic field.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Biologie de la Conservation, Département d'Écologie et d'Évolution, Université de Lausanne, Bâtiment de Biologie, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Collin
authors.forename: Anne-Leila
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Meistertzheim
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: David
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Moraga
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Boutet
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D049896:Crassostrea / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D015536:Down-Regulation / Q000187:drug effects; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000032:analysis*; D005602:France; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005843:Geography; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D009928:Organ Specificity / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D010575:Pesticides / Q000633:toxicity*; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015854:Up-Regulation / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D010575:Pesticides; D012333:RNA, Messenger