Comparative biochemistry and short-term starvation effects on the earthworms Eisenia veneta and Lumbricus terrestris studied by H-1 NMR spectroscopy and pattern recognition

The aim of this work was to determine the applicability of high resolution H-1 nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic methods to the analysis of earthworm extracts, as a prelude to toxicity testing, This has been appl ied to the characterisation and examination of starvation effects on the en dogenous metabolites of extracts of Eisenia veneta and Lumbricus terrestris in Ringer solution. Identified metabolites include free amino acids, sugar s and low molecular weight organic acids. In both E. veneta and L. terrestr is NMR signals from: alanine, arginine, asparagine, glutamate, glycine, iso leucine, leucine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine, valine, g lucose, citrate, fumarate, inosine, lactate, propanone, succinate and uridi ne were detected. The E. veneta extracts contained N-methyl-nicotinic and u rocanic acids that were not detected in L. terrestris. Higher concentration s of inosine, lysine and malonic acid were also observed for E. veneta. In L, terrestris a higher amount of glucose was observed. The effect of short- term starvation on E, veneta showed small metabolic changes for the first 5 days, with clear differences at 6 and 7 days. These included increases in glutamate, citrate, aspartate and isoleucine, and decreases in lysine, isol eucine and threonine. In contrast L. terrestris showed no consistent endoge nous low molecular weight metabolite changes as detected by H-1 NMR spectro scopy over this period, suggesting this species to be more suitable for soi l toxicity testing and monitoring using this procedure. (C) 2001 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.