Responses of Hexaplex (Murex) trunculus to selected pollutants

Cadmium, copper and zinc concentrations (in whole soft body and in tissues) were measured in Hexaplex trunculus collected from the Bizerta lagoon in Tunisia. An evaluation of the biological effects of the most toxic metals (cadmium and copper) and of two organics (carbofuran and lindane), present in the sediments of the Bizerta lagoon, was attempted by measuring biomarkers (acetylcholinesterase: AChE, catalase: CAT and glutathione S-transferase: GST activities) in animals experimentally exposed for 48 or 72 h. The concentration ranges as follows: Zn>Cu>Cd. Copper concentrations are highly variable (8.0 to 235 microg g(-1) d.w.) whereas cadmium (range 1.35-4.86 microg g(-1)) and zinc (range 360-1320 microg g(-1)) concentrations are less variable. The digestive gland and the gill take up more metal than the muscle. AChE activity in H. trunculus is decreased by exposure to carbofuran or the mixture carbofuran and cadmium, in the digestive gland and muscle and by copper and by lindane in the digestive gland. AChE is generally inhibited by carbamates but some other compounds may also decrease this activity as observed in this paper. An increase in CAT activity associated with a decrease in GST activity is noted in the muscle of H. trunculus exposed to cadmium, to carbofuran and to the mixture of cadmium and carbofuran, and in the digestive gland of animals exposed to lindane. These pollutants may act upon glutathione and decrease the GST activity that cannot detoxify them and CAT activity has a protective effect. On the contrary, copper increases CAT and GST activities in the digestive gland of exposed gastropods; these enzymes seem to cooperate and play together their rôle of anti-oxidant enzymes. If H. trunculus is not a bioindicator species for metal concentrations, due to a high variability in metal concentrations, nevertheless the biochemical responses to pollutants (cadmium, copper, carbofuran and lindane) represented by AChE, CAT and GST activities may act as biomarkers of exposure in this species.