Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 21 January 1983:
Vol. 219. no. 4582, pp. 297 - 299
DOI: 10.1126/science.219.4582.297
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Blood Components Prevent Sulfide Poisoning of Respiration of the Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worm Riftia pachyptila

MARK A. POWELL 1 and GEORGE N. SOMERO 1

1 Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093

Respiration of plume tissue of the hydrothermal vent tube worm Riftia pachyptila is insensitive to sulfide poisoning in contrast to tissues of animals that do not inhabit vents. Permeability barriers may not be responsible for this insensitivity since plume homogenates are also resistant to sulfide poisoning. Cytochrome c oxidase of plume, however, is strongly inhibited by sulfide at concentrations less than 10 µM. Factors present in blood, but not in cytosol, prevent sulfide from inhibiting cytochrome c oxidase. Avoidance of sulfide poisoning of respiration in Riftia pachyptila thus appears to involve a blood-borne factor having a higher sulfide affinity than that of cytochrome c oxidase, with the result that appreciable amounts of free sulfide are prevented from accumulating in the blood and entering the intracellular compartment.

Submitted on July 22, 1982
Revised on October 4, 1982


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
S-Sulfohemoglobin and disulfide exchange: The mechanisms of sulfide binding by Riftia pachyptila hemoglobins.
F. Zal, E. Leize, F. H. Lallier, A. Toulmond, A. Van Dorsselaer, and J. J. Childress (1998)
PNAS 95, 8997-9002
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Hydrogen Sulfide Oxidation Is Coupled to Oxidative Phosphorylation in Mitochondria of Solemya reidi.
M. A. POWELL and G. N. SOMERO (1986)
Science 233, 563-566
   Abstract »    PDF »
Sulfide Binding by the Blood of the Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worm Riftia pachyptila.
A. J. ARP and J. J. CHILDRESS (1983)
Science 219, 295-297
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)