title: Assessment of the non-protein amino acid BMAA in Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis after feeding with estuarine cyanobacteria.
abstract: To determine whether 2-amino-3-methylaminopropanoic acid (BMAA) could be taken up by marine organisms from seawater or their diet mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis, collected from the North Atlantic Portuguese shore, were exposed to seawater doped with BMAA standard (for up to 48 h) or fed with cyanobacteria (for up to 15 days). Mussels were able to uptake BMAA when exposed to seawater. Mussels fed with cyanobacteria Synechocystis salina showed a rise in BMAA concentration during feeding and a decline in concentration during the subsequent depuration period. Cells from the gills and hepatopancreas of mussels fed with S. salina showed lessened metabolic activity in mussels fed for longer periods of time. A hot acidic digestion (considered to account for total BMAA) was compared with a proteolytic digestion, using pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin. The latter was able to extract from mussels approximately 30% of total BMAA. Implications for BMAA trophic transfers in marine ecosystems are discussed.
authors.affiliation: CIMAR/CIIMAR-Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, Universityof Porto, Rua dos Bragas 289, 4050-123, Porto, Portugal, mbaptista@ciimar.up.pt.
authors.forename: Mafalda S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Baptista
authors.forename: Rita G W
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
authors.forename: Paula C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.forename: C Marisa R
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.forename: Vitor M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
mesh_terms: D000599:Amino Acids, Diamino / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000493:pharmacokinetics*; D000818:Animals; D001267:Atlantic Ocean; D000458:Cyanobacteria / Q000378:metabolism; D000087522:Cyanobacteria Toxins; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020387:Food Chain; D005880:Gills / Q000378:metabolism; D043143:Hepatopancreas / Q000378:metabolism; D049878:Mytilus / Q000378:metabolism*; D011174:Portugal; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D000599:Amino Acids, Diamino; D000087522:Cyanobacteria Toxins; C001824:beta-N-methylamino-L-alanine