Liu Hui

Effect of Epinephrine on the Settlement and Metamorphosis of Manila Clam Larvae

Chemical inducement and DDRT-PCR (differential display reverse transcription PCR) are adopted to investigate the effect of epinephrine (EPI) on the settlement and metamorphosis of Manila clam larvae. Chemical inducement shows that EPI has an effect to some extent on the metamorphosis of Manila clam larvae at all concentrations and in all treatments designed. The most significant result of inducement is obtained at the concentration of 10−6 mol L−1 and for 4h. DDRT-PCR using six primer pairs shows that the gene expression pattern is quite different between EPI treatment and the control. Three hundred and forty-three amplification bands are obtained in total, among which, 67 (19.53%) are differentially appeared. Therefore, EPI has an effect on the gene expression of the eye spot larval Manila clam. It can be hypothesized that EPI is a settlement and metamorphosis inducer for Manila clam. EPI may lead to larvae settlement and metamorphosis by binding to the receptors on the membrane and then changing the gene expression of larvae cells.