Effects of the marine toxins okadaic acid and palytoxin on mussel phagocytosis

The present study analyzes the effects of the marine toxins okadaic acid (OA) and palytoxin (PTX) on the phagocytic activity of immunocytes from the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis. In particular, we describe how the effects of the two biotoxins are influenced by the temperature and experimental stress applied before hemolymph withdrawal. The collected data indicate that OA increases phagocytic activity only when hemolymph incubation is performed at 25 °C, but not at 20 °C, suggesting a certain degree of dependence of OA effects from the status of mussel immunocytes. Conversely, PTX plays an active role in immunocyte signalling transduction pathways, increases the phagocytic activity and markedly promotes the involvement of p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase in phagocytosis. Overall, we conclude that both OA and PTX influence mussel phagocytic activity, and the toxic effects may depend on both the mollusc conditions and the activation of specific signalling pathways.