The present work describes the effect of different salinities on the functional morphology of the P. argentinus hepatopancreas and analyses the tissue recovery after re-acclimation to freshwater. Adult prawns of both sexes at sexual rest were collected from a tributary of the Mar Chiquita coastal lagoon. The prawns were acclimated in aquaria to four salinity conditions: 0 (control), 8, 16 and 2...

Freshwater mussels, Elliptio complanata were collected from a reference and pollutant-impacted pond on Cape Cod, MA. Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity was measured in gill, hepatopancreas and foot. In addition, content of seven heavy metals were measured in whole bodies. GST activity was significantly elevated in hepatopancreas and foot, as was whole body cadmium level in animals from th...

Several recent studies of vertebrate adaptation to environmental stress have suggested roles for microRNAs (miRNAs) in regulating global suppression of protein synthesis and/or restructuring protein expression patterns. The present study is the first to characterize stress-responsive alterations in the expression of miRNAs during natural freezing or anoxia exposures in an invertebrate species, ...

Antioxidant parameters, such as total glutathione, glutathione S-transferase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glyoxalases, catalase, and some heavy metals such as, lead, cadmium and chromium were examined in hepatopancreas of both sexes of Procambarus clarkii collected seasonally from Lake Trasimeno, from winter 20002003 to autumn 2003. Heavy metals content in hepatopancreas in m...

Infectious disease constitutes a major obstacle to the sustainability of shrimp aquaculture worldwide and a significant threat to natural populations of shrimp and other crustacea. The study of the shrimp immune system, including the response to viral infection, has been hampered by a relative lack of molecular genetic information and of tools suitable for high-throughput assessment of gene exp...

Imidazole derivative KK-42 is a well-known regulator of insect growth. KK-42 pretreatment has been shown to promote the survival of Macrobrachium nipponense infected with Aeromonas hydrophila, possibly via activation of superoxide dismutase (SOD). In this study, the cytMnSOD gene was cloned from the hepatopancreas of M. nipponense using the rapid amplification of cDNA ends technique. The full-l...

The type strain of Vibrio owensii (DY05) was isolated during an epizootic of aquaculture-reared larvae (phyllosomas) of the ornate spiny lobster (Panulirus ornatus). V. owensii DY05 was formally demonstrated to be the etiological agent of a disease causing rapid and reproducible larval mortality with pathologies similar to those seen during disease epizootics. Vectored challenge via the aquacul...

Scorpions of the Family Buthidae have lower water loss rates (WLR) and enhanced osmoregulatory capacities in comparison with sympatric species of F. Scorpionidae. In this study we followed changes in water content of different body compartments in four scorpion species under prolonged desiccation conditions. The high initial WLR previously reported for Scorpionidae result in rapid depletion of ...

In this study, trypsin-like protease activity and expression of serine encoding genes (PmPPAE1, PmPPAE2 - clip-serine proteases PmTLP1, PmTLP2 proteases) in the different tissues black tiger shrimp were determined. The level PmPPAE1 was highest hemolymph; meanwhile that PmTLP1 hepatopancreas. hemolymph white spot syndrome virus (WSSV)-injected shrimp, PmPPAE1, upregulated by 2.32, 2.57 4.56-fol...

ADP-ribosylation factors (Arfs) are guanosine triphosphate (GTP)-binding proteins that play essential roles in membrane trafficking, and they have been recently reported to be involved innate immunity crustaceans. However, little information is available on Arfs the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense their response ammonia nitrogen stress. In this study, we identified a novel M. Arfn...