Please join us on at 4pm on Monday October 29th for a Rhubarb talk by Cathy Cole:
Adaptations to a heavy metal lifestyle: the molecular detoxification strategies of
Mytilus edulis, and implications for life in extreme environments.
Hydrothermal
vents support life in extreme abundance, yet fluids emanating from
these vents are highly enriched in many metals compared
with seawater. Animals are exposed to metal concentrations on the
order of a thousand times higher than in oceanic waters and must have
evolved specialised mechanisms of detoxification. To understand faunal
colonisation of these metalliferous environments,
it is important to investigate pre-adaptations for detoxification in
their non-vent relatives. The common blue mussel,
Mytilus edulis, is the closest shallow-water taxonomic relative
of the deep-sea hydrothermal vent mussel subfamily, the Bathymodiolinae.
Using biochemical techniques learnt this summer during a GSNOCS
exchange placement to University College Cork, Ireland,
I investigated the proteomic response of M. edulis to experimental metal enrichment.
I will present my results from this study, which illustrate how metal-induced oxidative stress influences protein expression and
redox modifications to key functional groups in both M. edulis and their vent-mussel relatives,
Bathymodiolus sp. I will discuss the concept of pre-adaption to metal enrichment in
Mytilus edulis and the significance of metals as a barrier to vent colonisation.
Venue: The PG lounge, 4.00 pm
Refreshments provided!
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