RESUMEN
Salinity is one of the most important abiotic environmental factors affecting marine animals. If salinity deviate from optimum, adaptive mechanisms switch on to maintain organism's physiological activity. In this study, the reaction of the snails Littorina saxatilis from natural habitats and in response to experimental salinity decreasing was analyzed on proteomic level. The isolation of all snails inside their shells and gradually declining mortality was observed under acute experimental salinity decrease (down to 10 per hundred). Proteomic changes were evaluated in the surviving experimental mollusks compared to control individual using differential 2D gel-electrophoresis (DIGE) and subsequent LC-MS/MS-identification of proteins. Approximately 10% of analyzed proteins underwent up- or down regulation during the experiment. Proteins of folding, antioxidant response, intercellular matrix, cell adhesion, cell signaling and metabolic enzymes were identified among them. Proteome changes observed in experimental hypoosmotic stress partially reproduced in the proteomes of mollusks that live in conditions of natural freshening (estuaries). Possible mechanisms involved in the adaptation process of L. saxatilis individuals to hypo-osmotic stress are discussed.
