Meeting Abstract
P1.12 Thursday, Jan. 3 Effect of Blocking Agents on Cadmium Uptake in Gill Tissue of the Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica YATES, M.*; CARROLL, M.A.; CATAPANE, E.J.; Medgar Evers College; Medgar Evers College; Medgar Evers College margie@mec.cuny.edu
Cadmium is a trace metal with no known biological functions. In humans it adversely affects a number of organs, including kidney, liver and lung by inducing apoptotosis or carcinogenesis. Routes of exposure to humans include cigarette smoke and ingestion of cadmium contaminated food. Cadmium pollution is widespread in the aquatic environment and marine animals, especially bivalves, accumulate cadmium in their tissues. The gill of the oyster Crassostrea virginica,/i> is a good tissue in which to study cadmium accumulations. The present study was designed to determine the effects of p-aminosalicylic acid (PAS) and EDTA, two metal blocking agents clinically used to treat metal toxicity, on cadmium accumulations in oyster gill tissue. Gills were incubated for 10 hours with 0.5 mM cadmium then removed from the cadmium and incubated with various concentrations of the blocking agents for 3 days. Cadmium levels then were measured using electrothermal vaporization with deuterium lamp background correction in a Perkin Elmer AA800 Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer with a THGA graphite furnace. Significant amounts of cadmium accumulated in the gill after 10 hours. PAS treatments (0.5 – 4 mM) did not reduce cadmium accumulations in the gill. Low concentrations of EDTA (0.5 – 1 mM) did not reduce cadmium accumulations; however, higher concentrations of EDTA (2 – 4 mM) were effective in reducing the accumulations. Cadmium accumulations cause serious toxic effects in animals and it can be valuable to find effective agents that can remove cadmium from tissues and blood. This work was supported in part by grants 2R25GM06003-05 of the Bridge Program of NIGMS, 0516041071 of NYSDOE, 0622197 of the DUE Program of NSF, 0420359 of the MRI Program of NSF and 67876-0036 of PSC-CUNY.
