Accumulation and Elimination of Cadmium and Zinc in Littorina brevicula

Accumulation, elimination and subcellular distribution of heavy metals in Littorina brevicula exposed to cadmium and zinc separately and concurrently were investigated. When the winkles had been exposed to 400 ㎍/L CdCl₂ and 3000 ㎍/l ZnSO₄ separately for 90 days, each of the metal body burden in the whole sofl parts increased in proportion to time of exposure until 70 days. But it didn't increase after 70 days. But when the winkles had been exposed to cadmium and zinc simultaneously, cadmium body burden decreased but zinc body burden increased as compared to the winkles exposed to each of the metal. We also found that cadmium accumulated in the winkles was not depurated for 42 days, but zinc accumulated in them was depurated. Especially, zinc was depurated faster when they had been exposed to mixture of cadmium and zinc. After the winkles had been exposed to cadmium and zinc separately for 70 days, about 60% cadmium of the total body burden was associated with the soluble fraction, while about 75% zinc of the total body burden was associated with insoluble fraction. And these trends of metal partitioning did not alter when the winkles had been exposed to metal mixture. After the soluble fraction applied to gel-filtration chromatography column, the distribution patterns of cadmium and zinc associated with proteins or ligands were different each other. Most of cadmium (＞90%) in the soluble fraction was bound to MBP-1 (Metal-binding protein-1), about 6.5 kDa), while zinc was distributed evenly to HMW (High molecular weight fraction, >60 kDa), MBP-1, MBP-2 (about 5 kDa), LMW (Low molecular weight fraction,