F. Geret et al., COMPARISON BETWEEN ISOLATION PROTOCOLS COMMONLY USED FOR THE PURIFICATION OF MOLLUSK METALLOTHIONEINS, Marine environmental research, 46(1-5), 1998, pp. 545-550
Two centrifugation methods (at 30 000 and 100 000 g) combined with two
isolation procedures (heat denaturation and solvent precipitation) we
re tested to check if their use introduced significant differences in
the quantification of metals (Cd, Cu, Zn) and metallothioneins in blue
mussel organs (gills and digestive gland). No contaminating compounds
originating from the lowest centrifugation speed,were likely to inter
fere with quantitative measurements of metal, protein and metallothion
ein. As isolation treatments act on specific properties of proteins in
general and metallothionein isoforms in particular they cannot be use
d interchangeably,. Therefore, any comparisons of MT amounts in bivalv
e tissues with data from the literature have to take into account the
isolation procedure. Similar results were obtained with three other mo
lluscs, Crassostrea gigas, Bathymodiolus thermophilus thermophilus (hy
drothermal mussel), and Corbicula fluminea (estuarine bivalve). (C) 19
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