Abstract
The king scallop Pecten maximus retains the amnesic shellfish poisoning toxin, domoic acid (DA), for a long time. Most of the toxin is accumulated in the digestive gland, but this organ contains several cell types whose contribution to the accumulation of the toxin is unknown. Determining the time-course of the depuration by analyzing whole organs is difficult because the inter-individual variability is high. A sampling method, using biopsies of the digestive gland, has been developed. This method allows for repetitive sampling of the same scallop, but the representativeness of the samples obtained in this way needs to be validated. In this work, we found that the distribution of DA in the digestive gland of the scallops is mostly homogeneous. Only the area closest to the gonad, and especially its outer portion, had a lower concentration than the other ones, probably due to a transfer of the toxin to the intestinal loop. Samples obtained by biopsies can therefore be considered to be representative. Most of the toxin was accumulated in large cells (mostly digestive cells), which could be due to differences during the toxin absorption or to the preferential depuration of the toxin from the small cells (mostly secretory).
Highlights
In 1987 in Prince Edward Island, Canada, four people died and nearly 100 became intoxicated by the consumption of blue mussels Mytilus edulis
Domoic acid (DA), a tricarboxylic amino acid previously isolated from the red alga Chondria armata [4], was identified as the responsible agent [5]
Of the variations observed in repeated samples of this organ obtained using biopsies, which could be be expected that the larger absorptive cells contain more DA than the smaller secretory ones, unless a non-destructive way of monitoring the depuration process, and (2) gain some information about the transfer from absorptive to secretory cells is high
Summary
In 1987 in Prince Edward Island, Canada, four people died and nearly 100 became intoxicated by the consumption of blue mussels Mytilus edulis. Secretory cells produce enzymes and secrete them to the digestive lumen [62,63] It could, of the variations observed in repeated samples of this organ obtained using biopsies, which could be be expected that the larger absorptive cells contain more DA than the smaller secretory ones, unless a non-destructive way of monitoring the depuration process, and (2) gain some information about the transfer from absorptive to secretory cells is high. In this study the distribution of the DA among different regions (Figure 1), sectors and cellular types of the digestive gland of Pecten maximus was determined to (1) evaluate the heterogeneity of the. Separated by a dotted line) into which the digestive gland was divided
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