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Introduction
Israel A Vega currently works at the Laboratorio de Fisiología (IHEM-CONICET). Departamento de Morfofisiología, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Israel does research in Ecotoxicology, Ecophysiology, and Physiology of apple snails. More recently, we have begun to develop a line of wastewater epidemiology addressing a diversity of pathogens for human, animal, and environmental health.
Additional affiliations
August 2014 - August 2018
April 2004 - August 2014
Publications
Publications (64)
Hypometabolism is a common strategy employed by resilient species to withstand environmental stressors that would be life-threatening for other organisms. Under conditions such as hypoxia/anoxia, temperature and salinity stress, or seasonal changes (e.g. hibernation, estivation), stress-tolerant species down-regulate pathways to decrease energy exp...
In this work, we aimed at investigating cell and tissue responses of the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata, following the inoculation of the zoonotic pathogen Mycobacterium marinum. Different doses were tested (10, 20, 65, and 100 M CFU) and the mortality rate was negligible. The histopathogenesis was followed at 4, 9, and 28 days after inoculation....
Senescent cells accumulate in multicellular animals with aging, resulting in organ or tissue dysfunction. These alterations increase the incidence of a variety of illnesses, including infectious diseases, and, in certain instances, its severity. In search of a rationale for this phenomenon, we focused on the endophagocytic pathway in senescent cell...
The freshwater gastropod Pomacea canaliculata fulfills the ideal conditions of a bioindicator species since its digestive gland bioconcentrates elements toxic for human and ecosystems health. The aim of this work was to study the balance between production of free radicals and antioxidant defenses, and the generation of oxidative damage in the dige...
Background
The invasive gastropod Pomacea canaliculata has received great attention in the last decades as a result of its negative impact on crops agriculture, yet knowledge of their digestive physiology remains incomplete, particularly the enzymatic breakdown of macromolecules such as proteins and lipids.
Results
Discovery proteomics revealed as...
All female Pomacea canaliculata develop a small, male-like copulatory apparatus a few days after birth, which growths slowly until sexual maturity, and even further in older age. Previous studies have found trace elements like mercury (Hg), arsenic (As) and uranium (U) in tap water used for snail culture, and that these elements were accumulated in...
We stand as dissenters against the acceptance of scientific knowledge that has not been built on empirical data. With this in mind, this review synthesizes selected aspects of the immunobiology of gastropods and of apple snails (Ampullariidae) in particular, from morphological to molecular and “omics” studies. Our trip went through more than two ce...
Supplementary material: Antioxidant Responses Induced by Short-Term Activity–Estivation–Arousal Cycle in Pomacea canaliculata.
Long-term estivation (45 days) in the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata induces an increase of non-enzymatic antioxidants, such as uric acid and reduced glutathione (GSH), which constitutes an alternative to the adaptive physiological strategy of preparation for oxidative stress (POS). Here, we studied markers of oxidative stress damage, uric acid l...
The aim of this work was to study the absorption, distribution through the hemolymph, and bioaccumulation of arsenic by the freshwater Pomacea canaliculata using a short-lived tracer (⁷⁶As, t1/2: 1.07 d) with high specific activity. Arsenic travels mainly dissolved in the plasma of the snail's hemolymph. This element is transferred from the hemolym...
The adult fluke Stomylotrema vicarium (Stomylotrematidae, Microphalloidea) was described for the first time in Theristicus caerulescens in 1901, but the complete life cycle has remained unknown to date. Here, we found a stomylotrematid trematode in the digestive gland of the endemic apple snail Pomacea americanista. The digestive gland´s tubuloacin...
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an emerging tool that gives temporal and spatial information on a population's health status. Here, we report the epidemiological dynamics of a population of ~1.2 million residents in the metropolitan region of Mendoza province, Argentina, within the period July 2020 to January 2021. We combined the use of WBE...
The freshwater caenogastropod family Ampullariidae is emerging as a model for a variety of studies, among them, the evolution of terrestriality. A common character of the family is that all its members bear a lung while retaining the ancestral gill. This ensures that many ampullariids are able to inhabit poorly oxygenated waters, to bury in the mud...
Gastropod hematopoiesis occurs at specialized tissues in some species, but the evidence also suggests that hemocyte generation is maybe widespread in the connective tissues or the blood system in others. In Ampullariidae (Caenogastropoda), both the kidney and the lung contain putative hematopoietic cells, which react to immune challenges. In the cu...
Data reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database: genome assemblies and reads (Bioproject No: PRJNA523959 for P. canaliculata, PRJNA523958 for P. maculata, PRJNA445755 for M. cornuarietis, and PRJNA523095 for L. nyassanus); transcriptome sequences (Bioproject PRJNA473031 and PRJNA473253). Abstract The family Ampullariidae inc...
The vulnerability of aquatic ecosystems due to the entry of cadmium (Cd) is a concern of public and environmental health. This work explores the ability of tissues and symbiotic corpuscles of Pomacea canaliculata to concentrate and depurate Cd. From hatching to adulthood (4 months), snails were cultured in reconstituted water, which was a saline so...
We here compare morphological and molecular characters of some putative endosym-biotic elements of the digestive gland of three ampullariid species (Pomacea canaliculata, Pomacea scalaris and Asolene platae) which coexist in Lake Regatas (Palermo, Buenos Aires). The putative endosymbionts were reported in these species and were identified as C and...
El caracol manzana (Pomacea canaliculata) es un organismo ampliamente distribuido en ambientes acuáticos tropicales y subtropicales con una gran eficiencia para acumular metales y metaloides, aún en ambientes donde el agua tiene concentraciones elementales similares a los recomendados por la Organización Mundial de la Salud para consumo humano. Por...
It was investigated the potential of Rhodococcus erythropolis AW3 as a biosorbent for the removal of crystal violet (CV) dye from natural water and real effluents. The biosorbent was characterized by flow cytometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy X-ray dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), and po...
Ampullariids are freshwater gastropods bearing a gill and a lung, thus showing different degrees of amphibiousness. In particular, Pomacea canaliculata (Caenogastropoda, Ampullariidae) is an obligate air-breather that relies mainly or solely on the lung for dwelling in poorly oxygenated water, for avoiding predators, while burying in the mud during...
The freshwater snail Pomacea canaliculata, an invasive species of global significance, possesses a well-developed digestive system and diverse feeding mechanisms enabling the intake of a wide variety of food. The identification of glycosidases in adult snails would increase the understanding of their digestive physiology and potentially generate ne...
The family Ampullariidae includes both aquatic and amphibious apple snails. They are an emerging model for evolutionary studies due to the high diversity, ancient history and wide geographical distribution. Insight into drivers of ampullariid evolution is hampered, however, by the lack of genomic resources. Here we report the genomes of four ampull...
Freezing, dehydration, salinity variations, hypoxia or anoxia are some of the environmental constraints that many organisms must frequently endure. Organisms adapted to these stressors often reduce their metabolic rates to maximize their chances of survival. However, upon recovery of environmental conditions and basal metabolic rates, cells are aff...
In the context of a broader program dealing with the symbiotic associations of apple snails, we sampled three species that coexist in Lake Regatas (Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina). The population of Asolene platae , (but not those of Pomacea canaliculata and Pomacea scalaris ) showed trematode larvae (echinocercariae and xiphidiocercariae) in hae...
Knowledge on the immune system of Pomacea canaliculata is becoming increasingly important, because of this gastropod’s role as intermediate host and vector of Angiostrongylus cantonensis , the etiologic agent of eosinophilic meningitis in humans and domestic animals. Immune defenses of this gastropod comprise both humoral and cellular components, b...
Pomacea canaliculata may serve as a model organism for comparative studies of oxidative damage and antioxidant defenses in active, hibernating and arousing snails. Oxidative damage (as TBARS), free radical scavenging capacity (as ABTS+ oxidation), uric acid (UA) and glutathione (GSH) concentrations, activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and cata...
Many animals show different physiological responses to overcome the consequences of harsh environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures or shortage of oxygen, food or water. The freshwater snail Pomacea canaliculata is a successful invasive species that show physiological responses which may protect it from water shortage (during estivation...
Are we all addicts? A neurobiological perspective on compulsive behaviour.
Drug addiction, we are told, is perhaps the worst medical problem of the modern world. It is disconcerting, then, to realise that we still do not have a clear definition of what constitutes addiction. Here I will address the question from the broader perspective of compulsi...
Pomacea canaliculata is a mollusk potentially useful as a biomonitor species of freshwater quality. This work explores the ability of snail tissues and symbiotic corpuscles to bioconcentrate and depurate mercury, arsenic, and uranium. Adult snails cultured in metal-free reconstituted water were exposed for eight weeks (bioaccumulation phase) to wat...
Two types of pigmented intracellular bodies have been reported in the digestive glands of several caenogastropods, particularly in the families Ampullariidae (Architaenioglossa: Ampullarioidea), Strombidae and Struthiolariidae (Littorinimorpha: Stromboidea). Rounded corpuscles, which are usually light brown, are identified here as C corpuscles, whi...
Mollusks are the second largest and diverse animal phylum in nature. In general these animals present a well developed digestive tube with associated exocrine glands. Although there are few studies of enzymatic digestion in mollusks, chymotrypsin and trypsin have been reported in some species of the phylum. Pomacea canaliculata is a freshwater snai...
Two morphs of an endosymbiont (identified as C and K corpuscles) are found within cells of the digestive gland in P. canaliculata. Since previous evidence suggested that cadmium produced a decrease in the frequency of copulation and the number of egg masses, and an increase of non-embryonated eggs in this snail, experiments were launched to measure...
Hemocytes in the circulation and kidney islets, as well as their phagocytic responses to microorganisms and fluorescent beads, have been studied in Pomacea canaliculata, using flow cytometry, light microscopy (including confocal laser scanning microscopy) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Three circulating hemocyte types (hyalinocytes, ag...
Apple snails (Ampullariidae) are among the largest and most ecologically important freshwater
snails. The introduction of multiple species has reinvigorated the field and spurred a
burgeoning body of research since the early 1990s, particularly regarding two species introduced
to Asian wetlands and elsewhere, where they have become serious agricult...
Biomonitoring has the advantage of retaining a memory of pollutant emissions, thus overcoming the difficulty of detecting contaminants that are irregularly emitted and quickly diluted in large volumes, for instance in lakes and streams. The apple snail Pomacea canaliculata (Architaenioglossa, Ampullariidae) is a freshwater species original
from the...
Embryo morphology, feeding mechanism and changes in composition of the egg capsule content during development (intracapsular fluids and embryos) were studied in Odontocymbiola magellanica from newly spawned egg capsules to the pre-hatching juvenile stage. Changes in embryo morphology and behavior are presented, based on observations and micrographs...
The effects of TBT on mortality and reproduction were studied in this invasive snail. The nominal fifty percent lethal concentration (LC50) was 9 µg TBT/L, after 28 days. The nominal 'no observed effect on lethality concentration' (NOECL ) was 6 µg TBT/L after the same period. Male-female couples and females that had been group-mated but were isola...
Digestive proteases of the digestive tract of the apple snail Pomacea canaliculata were studied. Luminal protease activity was found in the crop, the style sac and the coiled gut and was significantly higher in the coiled gut. Several protease bands and their apparent molecular weights were identified in both tissue extracts and luminal contents by...
The invasive Pomacea canaliculata estivates during periods of drought and should cope with harmful effects of reoxygenation during arousal. We studied thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), enzymatic (superoxide dismutase, SOD and catalase, CAT) and non-enzymatic antioxidants (uric acid and reduced glutathione), and heat shock protein exp...
A hemocyte primary culture system for Pomacea canaliculata in a medium mimicking hemolymphatic plasma composition was developed. Hemocytes adhered and spread onto culture dish in the first few hours after seeding but later began forming aggregates. Time lapse video microscopy showed the dynamics of the early aggregation, with cells both entering an...
Pigments present in the brown-greenish C morph of an intracellular endosymbiont of Pomacea canaliculata were investigated. Acetone extracts of the endosymbiotic corpuscles showed an absorption spectrum similar to that of chlorophylls. Three fractions obtained from silica gel column chromatography of the acetone extracts (C(I), C(II), and C(III)), w...
Chagas disease is a major health problem in Latin America and is caused by the parasitic protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. Although many drugs have been used to alleviate the disease, these have been ineffective in the chronic phase and have also presented numerous side effects on patients. In this study we tested the effect of three sesquiterpene lacto...
The differential ability of apple snail tissues, endosymbionts, and eggs to bioaccumulate several metals (Sb, As, Ba, Br, Zn, Cr, Fe, Hg, Se, and U) was investigated.
Metal concentrations were determined by neutron activation analysis in several tissues, endosymbionts, and eggs from mature apple snails cultured in either drinking water or reconstit...
Haemolymph plasma constituents were studied in Pomacea canaliculata. Osmolality, pH, electrolytes, two metals, monosaccharides, total proteins, free amino acids and other nitrogen compounds were measured. Glucose, but not galactose, was detected in plasma. Cations found (in decreasing order) were sodium, calcium, potassium and magnesium. Chloride w...
The physiological ability to estivate is relevant for the maintenance of population size in the invasive Pomacea canaliculata. However, tissue reoxygenation during arousal from estivation poses the problem of acute oxidative stress. Uric acid is a potent antioxidant in several systems and it is stored in specialized tissues of P. canaliculata. Chan...
The physiological ability to estivate is relevant for the maintenance of population size in the invasive Pomacea canaliculata. However, tissue reoxygenation during arousal from estivation poses the problem of acute oxidative stress. Uric acid is a potent antioxidant in several systems and it is stored in specialized tissues of P. canaliculata. Chan...
Odontocymbiola magellanica is the only known South American volutid gastropod that deposits calcareous egg capsules. The spawn is moulded and fixed
to flat or convex surfaces by the female's ventral pedal gland, during an hours-long process in which the female adopts a
stereotyped posture and appears nonreactive to most external stimuli. Microscopi...
Intracellular urate concretions are known to occur in some insects, crustaceans and gastropods.
Crystalloid-containing urate cells and tissues are widespread in many organs of the apple-snail
Pomacea canaliculata. The occurrence of three different urate tissues (perivascular, compact and
nodular) correlated well with uric acid concentrations found...
Pomacea canaliculata shows sleeves of a specialized tissue surrounding arteries of the midgut gland. This tissue is formed mainly by ''radiated cells'' (large vacuolated cells, bearing small nuclei without nucleoli) which are arranged around the vascular muscular layer. Smaller ''satellite cells,'' with a scarce cytoplasm and clear nucleolated nucl...
Pomacea canaliculata shows sleeves of a specialized tissue surrounding arteries of the midgut gland. This tissue is formed mainly by ''radiated cells'' (large vacuolated cells, bearing small nuclei without nucleoli) which are arranged around the vascular muscular layer. Smaller ''satellite cells,'' with a scarce cytoplasm and clear nucleolated nucl...
Pomacea canaliculata shows sleeves of a specialized tissue surrounding arteries of the midgut gland.
This tissue is formed mainly by ‘‘radiated cells’’ (large vacuolated cells, bearing small nuclei without nucleoli) which
are arranged around the vascular muscular layer. Smaller ‘‘satellite cells,’’ with a scarce cytoplasm and clear
nucleolated nucl...
ABSTRACT: An integrated view to structure, function, ontogeny and phylogenetic significance of the male genital system is presented. Genital morphology within the Ampullariidae has evolved towards a greater complexity (reaching its maximum in the Neotropical genera Pomacea and Marisa) that includes the development of both a closed sperm channel ens...
Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck 1822) occurs
mainly in lentic habitats throughout the lower Amazon
basin and the Plata basin (Hylton-Scott, 1958; Martín
et al., 2001). This Neotropical species has been introduced
(ca. 1980) to several South East Asian countries
for aquaculture, and has become a serious pest for rice
and other crops (Halwart, 1994). M...
Pigmented corpuscles (C and K types) and their cellular associations in the midgut gland, as well as similar pigmented corpuscles in snail's feces and in up to 3-year-old aquarium sediments, were studied. C corpuscles are light brown-greenish spherical bodies (diameter 14 m) surrounded by a thick, electron dense wall, and containing inner granules...
Morphology of pigmented corpuscles (C and K types) in the midgut gland of Pomacea canaliculata has suggested that they may be morphotypes of a prokaryotic symbiont. Both corpuscles were isolated from midgut gland tissue to (1) quantify gland occupancy in different experimental conditions and (2) determine and preliminarily characterize DNA present...
A new species of cyclopoid copepod, Ozmana huarpium, is described as a symbiont to Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck 1822) (Caenogastropoda, Ampullariidae). Rather large numbers (about one hundred copepods per snail) were found, although there was no evidence of harm to the host. To our knowledge, O. haemophila (symbiont to P. maculata), and the curren...
Pigmented intracellular corpuscles (“spherioles”) have been known to occur in the midgut gland of ampullariid snails for many years (Meenakshi, 1955; Andrews, 1965; Lutfy and Demian, 1968). Andrews (1965) described them in her morphological account of the midgut gland of P. canaliculata (Lamarck, 1822), and referred to them as “greenish spherules”...
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