Evidence of Seasonal Variations in the Biochemical Composition of Subcellular Fractions in Tissues of the Freshwater Mussel Lamellidens marginalis

Abstract

During our study, we investigated the changes in protein concentration, glycogen content, and total lipid content in two different natural ponds, specifically in freshwater mussels' foot, gills and digestive glands. This kind of research has never been done before. We discovered that digestive gland tissues have the highest levels of protein, glycogen, and total lipids. In both ponds, during the monsoon period (September to November 2021), we observed that digestive gland cytosol and microsome had the highest protein levels, followed by digestive gland microsome, gill cytosol and microsome, and foot cytosol and microsome. Additionally, glycogen levels were higher in gill cytosol and foot cytosol fractions in Pond 2 during the monsoon period, compared to Pond 1 in the post-monsoon period (December 2021 to February 2022). During the post-monsoon period in both ponds, total lipid content in microsome fractions of digestive gland tissue was higher than in foot cytosol and microsome fractions during the monsoon period. Our study suggests that digestive gland tissues are crucial in determining the health of L. marginalis as they contain the highest levels of these biochemical constituents.