Abstract
Intertidal Mytilus edulis experience rapid transgression to hypoxia when they close their valves during low tide. This induces a physiological stress response aiming to stabilize tissue perfusion against declining oxygen partial pressure in shell water. We hypothesized that nitric oxide (NO) accumulation supports blood vessel opening in hypoxia and used live imaging techniques to measure NO and superoxide anion () formation in hypoxia-exposed gill filaments. Thirty minutes of moderate (7 kPa pO2) and severe hypoxia (1 kPa pO2) caused 1.6- and 2.4-fold increase, respectively, of NO accumulation in the endothelial muscle cells of the hemolymphatic vessels of the gill filaments. This led to a dilatation of blood vessel diameter by 43% (7 kPa) and 56% (1 kPa), which facilitates blood flow. Experiments in which we applied the chemical NO-donor Spermine NONOate (concentrations ranging from 1 to 6 mM) under normoxic conditions corroborate the dilatational effect of NO on the blood vessel. The formation of within the filament epithelial cells increased 1.5 (7 kPa) and 2-fold (1 kPa) upon treatment. Biochemical analysis of mitochondrial electron transport complexes in hypoxia-exposed gill tissue indicates decreased activity of complexes I and III in both hypoxic conditions; whereas complex IV (cytochrome-c oxidase) activity increased at 7 kPa and decreased at 1 kPa compared to normoxic exposure conditions. This corresponds to the pattern of pO2-dependent gill respiration rates recorded in ex-vivo experiments. Severe hypoxia (1 kPa) appears to have a stabilizing effect on NO accumulation in gill cells, since less O2 is available for NO oxidation to nitrite/nitrate. Hypoxia thus supports the NO dependent inhibition of complex IV activity, a mechanism that could fine tune mitochondrial respiration to the local O2 availability in a tissue. Our study highlights a basal function of NO in improving perfusion of hypoxic invertebrate tissues, which could be a key mechanism of tolerance toward environmental O2 variations.
Highlights
Mytilus edulis, the blue mussel, is a bank forming species that colonizes intertidal and subtidal habitats
The blue mussel, is a bank forming species that colonizes intertidal and subtidal habitats. It belongs to the group of outstandingly hypoxia and anoxia tolerant marine invertebrates, endowed with specialized “anaerobic mitochondria” that can alternate between the use of oxygen (O2) and of endogenous fumarate as electron acceptor for anaerobic ATP production (Tielens et al, 2002)
The respiratory response of M. edulis to declining environmental O2 tension has been the focus of a great number of studies over the past 50 years, as researchers became fascinated with the enormous physiological flexibility of this successful colonizer of marine coastal habitats (Zandee et al, 1980) and worried about the increasing impact of climate global change, mussel fisheries, neobiota, and hypoxia on the marine coastal environments (Eriksson et al, 2010)
Summary
The blue mussel, is a bank forming species that colonizes intertidal and subtidal habitats. It belongs to the group of outstandingly hypoxia and anoxia tolerant marine invertebrates, endowed with specialized “anaerobic mitochondria” that can alternate between the use of oxygen (O2) and of endogenous fumarate as electron acceptor for anaerobic ATP production (Tielens et al, 2002). In intertidal environments blue mussels experience a reduction of shell water O2 partial pressure (pO2) to hypoxic or even anoxic levels during low tides caused by intermittent valve closure that prevents desiccation (Bayne et al, 1976; for review see Abele et al, 2017). Depending on length and intensity, anoxic exposure can cause cellular stress, including oxidative stress when cells are reoxidized during valve opening (Rivera-Ingraham et al, 2013b)
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