Research Article Transcriptional and Biochemical Effects of Cadmium and Manganese on the Defense System of Octopus vulgaris Paralarvae Aldo Nicosia, 1 Monica Salamone, 1 Salvatore Mazzola, 2 and Angela Cuttitta 1 1 Laboratory of Molecular Ecology and Biotechnology, National Research Council, Institute for Coastal Marine Environment, UOS Capo Granitola, Torretta Granitola, 91021 Trapani, Italy 2 National Research Council, Institute for Coastal Marine Environment, Calata Porta di Massa, 80133 Naples, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Angela Cuttitta; angela.cuttitta@iamc.cnr.it Received 2 September 2014; Revised 6 November 2014; Accepted 27 November 2014 Academic Editor: Francesco Dondero Copyright © Aldo Nicosia et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Due to anthropogenic activities the relative concentrations of cadmium and manganese have increased in the marine environment. Cephalopods are able to accumulate such metals and, as inhabitant of coastal waters, Octopus vulgaris is continuously exposed to anthropogenic activities. Since no study is available on the efects of heavy metals at molecular level in developing octopuses, herein we exposed 1-day-old paralarvae for 24 h to 10, 100, and 1000 g/L of CdCl 2 or MnCl 2 . Cd exerted a concentration-dependent inhibition of survival and a reduction in growth rate was shown while Mn exposure did not afect the survival rate even at the highest concentrations. Gene expression proiles of hsp70, sod, cat, and gst genes were analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR and deined patterns of transcription were observed. Moreover posttranscriptional analyses were also performed suggesting the impairment of metabolic functions, under strong oxidative conditions (as occurred in paralarvae exposed to Cd) or the complete detoxiication events (as occurred in paralarvae exposed to Mn). 1. Introduction Cadmium (Cd) and manganese (Mn) represent, respectively, typical nonessential and essential metals for the metabolism of living organisms [1]. Cd ions which enter into cells are transported to target tissues and act by a molecular and ionic mimicry mechanism substituting the proper ions in their metabolic sites [2]. Since Cd is a permanent metal ion, it is accumulated by many organisms which determine oxidative stress, DNA damage, increase in stress proteins (hsps), and macromolecular dam- age [3, 4]. Cd is also a natural constituent of ocean water, with average levels between 5 and 20 ng/L in open seas [5, 6], while higher levels between 1.49 g/L in the Galician coasts [7] and 73.8 mg/L in the Dardanelles Strait [8] were reported in highly polluted coastal area. In the last century, the massive production of Mn- containing compounds has attracted much interest [9] and now Mn is considered as an emerging contaminant [10]. Organisms need trace amounts of such metal [11]; however, exposure to high Mn levels is associated with genotoxic and cytotoxic efects afecting carcinogenesis and mutagenesis [12, 13]. Seawater typically contains approximately 2 g/L of Mn [14], depending on pH, oxygen concentration, and redox conditions and during hypoxia it reaches concentrations up to 22 mg/L [15, 16]. he toxic efects of Cd or Mn expo- sure have been widely described in diferent marine organ- isms; among these cephalopods are also able to accumulate essential, toxic, and nonessential elements [17, 18]. Among cephalopods, Octopus vulgaris is a cosmopolitan species that has been recognized as an important marine resource for the worldwide commercial isheries [19]. he common octopus, as inhabitant of coastal waters, occupies the benthic and the pelagic zone as an adult and hatchling, respectively. hus, it is continuously exposed to anthropogenic activities. Various studies reported data regarding the accumulation [20, 21] Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Article ID 437328