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Heavy metals accumulation and antioxidant defence system in Helix pomatia (Pulmonata: Helicidae) 

ANNA NOWAKOWSKA*¹, TOMASZ ŁACIAK² & MICHAŁ CAPUTA¹ 

¹Department of Animal Physiology, Institute of General and Molecular Biology, N. Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland 

² Department of Zoology of Vertebrates and Human Biology, Institute of Biology, Pedagogical University of Krakow, Poland *Corresponding author: Email: noann@umk.pl 

Abstract 

We present a study on the association between accumulation of heavy metals and activities of antioxidant enzymes, concentra-tions of glutathione (GSH) and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) as products of lipid peroxidation in selected tissues of Helix pomatia living in a natural habitat. Hepatopancreatic accumulation of Zn, Cd and Mg was many times higher than that in the kidney and foot, and was connected to an extremely high concentration of TBARS and activity of glutathione transferase. Moreover, the organ concentration of GSH was inversely proportional to TBARS. Activity of glutathione reduct-ase was unaffected by organ type. In contrast to the metals mentioned above, concentrations of Pb, Cu and Ni were extremely high in the kidney and shell and low in the hepatopancreas. The results confirm the crucial role of the hepatopancreas and kid-ney in the detoxification process and point to the shell as a ‘sink’ for some heavy metals. 

Key words: lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, digestive gland, foot, kidney, shell

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