Level of Heavy Metals in the Onsan Bay in Korea and Involvement of Metal Binding Protein in the Accumulation of Cadmium in Littorina brevicula

The heavy metal concentrations in seawater and winkles (Littorina brevicula) collected from the Onsan bay area in southeast of Korea were analyzed. The heavy metal concentrations in the seawater obtained from the most polluted site showed approximately 189. 205. and 110 fold higher cadmium, copper. and zinc concentrations, respectively. than the uncontaminated control site. The contamination levels of these metals in winkles were 11.08 - 2.35, 334.5 - 212.5, and 426.0 - 499.2$\mu\textrm{g}$ per gram dry body weight. respectively. The concentrations of all three metals in both the seawater and winkles decreased gradually with increasing distance from Daejeong stream, suggesting the stream being the major source of heavy metal input into the bay. Among the four body parts of digestive gland and gonad. gill. kidney, and remaining tissue in contaminated winkles, kidney showed the highest accumulation level of cadmium: copper and zinc, however. were more or less distributed among the four body parts. Upon gel filtration chromatography of the cytosol from the kidney of cadmium induced winkles, one cadmium peak corresponded to the elution peak of horse kidney metallothionein.