Marine mussels

Bioactive agents from marine mussels

Development of bioadhesives from marine mussels.

Mussel adhesive proteins have received increased attention as potential biomedical and environmentally friendly underwater adhesives thanks to their fascinating properties, including strong and flexible adhesion, adhesion to various material substrates, water displacement, that they are harmless to human body, and controlled biodegradability. Several mussel adhesive proteins have been identifie...

Solar irradiance dictates settlement timing and intensity of marine mussels

Identifying the environmental factors driving larval settlement processes is crucial to understand the population dynamics of marine invertebrates. This work aims to go a step ahead and predict larval presence and intensity. For this purpose we consider the influence of solar irradiance, wind regime and continental runoff on the settlement processes. For the first time, we conducted a 5-years w...

Clossed-vessel assisted microwave extraction of polychlorinated biphenyls in marine mussels

A reliable and simple procedure to extract polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from marine mussels using microwave energy is proposed. Freeze-dried mussels were subjected to MASE (Microwave Assisted Solvent Extraction) in a closed-vessel microwave system with n-pentane-sodium hydroxide (5 %) or dichloromethane-pentane (1:1) at different temperatures (70 and 90 oC), the extraction time was 10 minut...

Chronic environmental stress enhances tolerance to seasonal gradual warming in marine mussels

In global climate change scenarios, seawater warming acts in concert with multiple stress sources, which may enhance the susceptibility of marine biota to thermal stress. Here, the responsiveness to seasonal gradual warming was investigated in temperate mussels from a chronically stressed population in comparison with a healthy one. Stressed and healthy mussels were subjected to gradual tempera...