EFFECT OF WATER SOLUBLE CRUDE OIL HYDROCARBON EXPOSURE ON PROTEIN EXPRESSION OF A FRESHWATER PRAWN

M.Y. PASQUEVICH; M.S. DREON; H. HERAS

Potrero de los Funes, San Luis

Congreso; XLVII Reunión Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2011

Oil spills are common around the world and a major source of estuarine oil pollution. However, little is known of how it affects species in the community. In order to study the biological effect of a freshwater oil spill on organism and identify potential pollution biomarkers, we analyzed male and female subproteomes of the prawn Macrobrachium borellii exposed to the water-solublefraction (WSF) of crude oil in a laboratory bioassay. To this aim, protein mixtures were extracted from midgut gland prawns exposed for 7 days to a sublethal concentration of WSF(0.34 ppm), mostly a mixture of low-boiling aromatic hydrocarbons. Midgut gland proteins from non exposed prawns were used as control. Protein extracts were subsequently subject to2D gel electrophoresis and spots from exposed and control gels compared. Differentially-expressed proteins were analyzed by ESI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometry and their identity assigned in a MASCOT search mined against all known proteins. The presenceof several proteins over- and underexpressed was observed in both sexes.The analysis of differentially expressed proteins in prawns exposed to hydrocarbons provided the identification of proteins which could be employed as potential biomarkers, highlighting the usefulness of 2DE-based proteomic analysis in pollution studies.