Tseng, Yung-Che, Hu, Marian Y., Lin, Li-Yih, Liu, Sian-Tai, Melzner, Frank and Hwang, Pung-Pung (2012) Convergence of acid-base regulation in embryonic cephalopod and fish. Faseb Journal, 26 (1, Suppl.). 1070.1.

Abstract

The present study provides a first finding of the acid-base regulating machinery (ion-transporters relevant for acid-base regulation) in cephalopod, and series of studies showed that they exhibit specialized ion regulatory cells (ionocytes) on their skin and yolk epithelium. A feature that was so far only reported for fish. In addition, several ion regulatory genes were identified in cephalopod to be involved in the compensation of CO2 induced acid-base disturbances, including Na+/H+-exchanger (NHE3), ammonium transporters (Rhcg) and vacuolar H+-ATPase (VHA) by being significantly up regulated in response to elevated sea water pCO2. Here we show for the first time that cephalopod embryos exhibit epidermal ionocytes and that the skin is a mayor site for proton excretion. Similar to fish, ionocytes located on the skin and yolk of cephalopod embryos are characterized by high concentrations of mitochondria. These similar responses towards elevated water pCO2 and sensitivity thresholds during life history may be explained by convergent acid-base regulatory features of cephalopods and fish.

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