Accumulation of glutamate in sea anemones exposed to heavy metals and organic amines.

Abstract

Stress has been reported to accelerate protein catabolism in man and animals and as a result one can expect to observe changes in certain amino acids pools of these organisms. In the present study, the Gulf Coast sea anemone, Bunodosoma cavernata, was used as the test animal and free amino acid levels of whole animals were measured following stressed conditions. Sea anemones were chosen as the test animals since they are sessile and, due to the nature of their morphology, they have few mechanisms by which they can escape environmental stress. The animals were exposed to sublethal concentrations of mercuric chloride and cadmium chloride and the organic amines, aniline, diethanol amine (DEA), and ethylene diamine (EDA). Chloride salts of mercury and cadmium were chosen rather than other anions since chloride is the most abundant anion in seawater. These two particular metals were chosen as challenge compounds due to their high toxicity in aquatic systems. The three organic amines were chosen for their relatively high water solubility and low vapor pressure in an aqueous solution, thus insuring that the toxic compound is retained in the test solution. Since organic amines are used extensively in the Gulf Coast industrial complex, there ismore » a high probability of these compounds contaminating the marine environment. Results indicate that the reaction of B. cavernata to stress from organic amines is similar to the response to heavy metals, only more extensive.« less