Meeting Abstract
P1.116 Thursday, Jan. 3 Effect of Blocking Agents on Manganese uptake in Gill Tissue of the Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea virginica PERDOMO, Y.*; CARROLL, M.A.; CATAPANE, E.J.; Medgar Evers College; Medgar Evers College; Medgar Evers College margie@mec.cuny.edu
Manganese is needed in small amounts by the body for normal physiological functions, but high amounts are toxic and cause a disease called Manganism. Welders and other metal workers subjected to high levels of airborne manganese are targets for Manganism which is due to disruptions in dopamine neurons in the brain, causing movement disorders and disruptions of cellular responses to dopamine release. p-Aminosalicylic acid (PAS) is being used to alleviate symptoms of Manganism, but its mechanism of action is unknown. Crassostrea virginica, possesses a dopaminergic system innervating the gill. Our lab showed manganese disrupts this dopaminergic innervation. The present study determined effects of PAS on manganese accumulations in oyster gill. Animals were incubated with 0.5 mM manganese with and without 0.5 mM PAS for 3 days. Manganese levels were measured using Perkin Elmer AA800 Atomic Absorption spectrophotometer with a graphite furnace. PAS treated animals accumulated less manganese. In other experiments gill from C. virginica was exposed to 0.5 mM manganese for 10 hours and then treated with various concentrations of PAS over a three day period. PAS treated gill had lower accumulations of manganese as compared to control. In a similar experiment gill were treated with 0.5 mm Mn and then EDTA. The EDTA was less effective in reducing manganese accumulations. This study is showing the mechanism of action of PAS for alleviating symptoms of Manganism may be due in part to reducing tissue accumulations of manganese. This work was supported in part by the Louis Stoke Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) in Science, and 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.
