Research project: Molecular responses to metal stress at hydrothermal vents
Currently Active:
Yes
Hydrothermal vent support life in extreme abundance, yet these environments are highly enriched in many toxic compounds and metals compared with seawater. Metals catalyse the oxidation of sulphide, initialising a chain reaction that ultimately produces HO•, the most oxidising radical known to biological systems. The bulk of these reactive oxygen species (ROS) are absorbed by proteins, causing modifications to amino acid side chains. These changes can be reversible, temporarily protecting hey functional groups, or irreversible, inactivating key enzymes involved in detoxification.
Project Overview
Vent sites and reaction
Adaptation to a vent environment
The origin of faunal colonisation of hydrothermal vents is poorly understood. Following large-scale ocean anoxic events, deep-sea vents may have been re-colonised by shallow-water fauna, adapting either directly or via gradual stepping stones to the high pressure, temperature, and chemical toxicity.
To understand how molecular mechanisms of detoxification may have evolved in vent fauna, it is important to compare their proteomic response to metal stress with that of a related non-vent species. My research focuses on two species of Mytillidae mussel;
Bathymodiolus brevoir
, and
Mytilus edulis
.
B. brevior
were collected by ROV Kiel 6000 from two newly-discovered vent sites on the Southwest Indian Ridge (37
o
S, 2780 m).
M. edulis
, the shallow water blue mussel, were experimentally exposed to metal concentrations representative of a vent environment.
Metal exposure experiments
Scientific Aims
My research aims to further the understanding of molecular mechanisms of detoxification in vent fauna, and to investigate the potential for pre-adaptation in non-vent, related species. Aims include:
Characterise the chemical and metal environment of hydrothermal vent habitats.
Measure metal accumulation in gill and digestive gland tissues.
Quantify key proteomic markers of oxidative stress such as thiol oxidation and carbonylation, using fluorescent labelling and Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis (PAGE) techniques, in all tissues.
Generate protein expression profiles and contextualise these with detoxification pathways.