Pre-exposure to Cu2+ and CuO NPs leads to infection of caged blue mussels, Mytilus edulis L., by pathogenic microalga: Pilot study in the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary (Québec, Canada)

Zuykov, Michael; Kolyuchkina, Galina; Spiers, Graeme; Gosselin, Michel; Archambault, Philippe; Schindler, Michael

Pre-exposure to Cu2+ and CuO NPs leads to infection of caged blue mussels, Mytilus edulis L., by pathogenic microalga: Pilot study in the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary (Québec, Canada)

2021

As evidenced from literature, exposure to non-lethal concentrations of dissolved copper (Cu²⁺) and copper nanoparticles (CuO NPs) promotes blue mussels susceptibility to various bacterial infections. We study whether pre-exposure (3.5 h) with CuSO₄ (100 μg Cu L⁻¹) and CuO NPs (1000 μg Cu L⁻¹) will result in infection of M. edulis L. with pathogenic microalga Coccomyxa sp. under field conditions. In May – September 2019, cages were installed in the site Metis-sur-Mer, St. Lawrence Estuary (QC, Canada) where the native mussel population is known to be infected with the pathogen. Untreated and pre-exposed mussels were grown for up to 130 days. Only the mussels pre-exposed to copper were infected by Coccomyxa. This finding allows proposing that occurrences of Coccomyxa-infected mussels worldwide might have an association with water pollution with xenobiotics. Pre-exposure of caged mussels to copper, as a protocol monitoring for other infectious agents, can be recommended to test.

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