Exposure to cytotoxic concentrations of manganese and effects on development. Congresso Annuale del Dipartimento di Biologia Cellulare e dello Sviluppo

Manganese is one of the most abundant metals present in nature in trace amounts, which is accumulated and utilized by all forms of life. It plays a multitude of biological roles, but exposure of cells/organisms to high levels causes toxicity. In the marine environment, increasing concentrations of bio-available ions often result from anthropogenic activities, and, consequently, manganese represents a new emergent factor in environmental contamination. To study cyto-toxicity of manganese on development, we used an excellent model system as sea urchin embryos Paracentrotus lividus. In this work, we show results from two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) analysis that highlighted qualitative/quantitative patterns of protein spots differences in non-exposed and manganese-exposed embryos.