Biochemical Characterization of Defective Encysted Brine Shrimp Embryos
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Authors
Austerberry, Charles
Issue Date
1979
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Alternative Title
Abstract
The development of the aquatic crustacean Artemia
salina, the brine shrimp, has been studied extensively in
biochemistry laboratories around the world. Large quantities
of the dormant, encysted gastrulae {cysts) are
commercially available, the majority sold as food for
fish in aquaria and fish farms. Normally seventy to eighty
percent.of the cysts will hatch after 24 hours of incubation
in artificial seawater, yielding a nearly synchronous population
of free-swimming nauplius larvae.
The hatchability of cysts from Great Salt Lake in Utah,
a major source of cysts for many years, has decreased dramatically
in the past decade. We sought to determine the extent
of pre-emergence development in these defective cysts
by analyzing several biochemical. parameters of normal pre-emergence
metabolism. Characterization of the defect(s) in
recent Great Salt Lake brine shrimp cysts has implications
for both molecular embryology and Great Salt Lake ecology.
We have found that the defective embryos do not
assemble polyribosomes under conditions in which normal
embryos assemble discrete size classes of polyribosomes.
Since the embryos fail to initiate protein synthesis, it is
unlikely that they can resume any aspect of normal development. Analysis of DNA content has shown that the defective
embryos are not simply uncleaved eggs, although they may
have entered dormancy at a premature developmental stage.
Studies of RNA and protein synthesis in cell-free systems
·supplied with radioactive precursors failed to give reproducible results. Cyst shells, or some factor(s) associated
with cyst shells, may have affected the extracts used in
these cell-free systems.
Description
vii, 50 p.
Citation
Publisher
Kalamazoo College
License
U.S. copyright laws protect this material. Commercial use or distribution of this material is not permitted without prior written permission of the copyright holder.