Bisphenol A and microplastics weaken the antimicrobial ability of blood clams by disrupting humoral immune responses and suppressing hemocyte chemotactic activity

Robust antimicrobial capability is crucial for marine organisms survival in complex ocean environments. Although the detrimental impacts of emergent pollutants on cellular immune response of marine bivalve mollusks were increasingly documented, the effects of bisphenol A (BPA) and microplastics (MPs) on humoral immune response and hemocyte chemotactic activity remain unclear. Therefore, in this study, the toxicities of BPA and MPs, alone or in combination, to the antimicrobial ability, humoral immune response, and hemocyte chemotactic activity were investigated in the blood clam Tegillarca granosa. Our data demonstrated that exposure of blood clams to BPA, MPs, and BPA-MPs for 2 weeks lead to significant reductions in their survival rates upon pathogenic bacterial challenge, indicating evident impairment of antimicrobial ability. Compared to control, the plasma of pollutant-incubated blood clams exhibited significantly less antimicrobial activity against the growth of V. harveyi, suggesting significant reduction in humoral immune effectors including defensin, lysozyme (LZM), and lectin. Moreover, hemocytes migration across the polycarbonate membrane to the serum containing chamber was markedly arrested by 2-week exposure to BPA, MPs, and BPA-MPs, suggesting a hampered chemotactic activity. In addition, the intracellular contents of ROS and protein carbonyl in hemocytes were markedly induced whereas the expression levels of key genes from the MAPK and actin cytoskeleton regulation pathways were significantly suppressed upon exposure. In this study, it was also found that BPA-MP coexposure was significantly more toxic than single exposures. In summary, our findings revealed that exposure to the pollutants tested possibly impair the antimicrobial ability of blood clam through (1) reducing the inhibitory effect of plasma on bacterial growth, the contents of humoral immune effectors, and the chemotactic activity of hemocytes, (2) interrupting IL-17 activation of MAPK signal pathway, (3) inducing intracellular ROS, elevating protein carbonylation levels, and disrupting actin cytoskeleton regulation in hemocytes.