The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Bioaccumulation and Metabolic Effects of the Endocrine Disruptor Methoprene in the Lobster, Homarus americanus1
1 Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia 31207
2 Agricultural and Environmental Services Labs, University of Georgia, 2300 College Station Road, Athens, Georgia 30602
3 Department of Biological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
4 Department of Entomology, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
5 Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis, Bodega Bay, California 94923
6 Darling Marine Center, University of Maine, Walpole, Maine 04573
7 
Division of Basic Medical Sciences, School of Medicine, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia 31207
Methoprene is a pesticide that acts as a juvenile hormone agonist. Although developed initially against insects, it has since been shown to have toxic effects on larval and adult crustaceans. Methoprene was one of several pesticides applied to the Western Long Island Sound (WLIS) watershed area during the summer of 1999; the other pesticides were malathion, resmethrin, and sumethrin. These pesticides were applied as part of a county-by-county effort to control the mosquito vector of West Nile Virus. Subsequently, the seasonal lobster catches from the WLIS have decreased dramatically. The lethality of the pesticides to lobsters had been unknown. We studied the effects of methoprene while other investigators studied effects of the other pesticides. We questioned whether methoprene, through its effects on larvae, adults or both, could have contributed to this decline. We found that low levels of methoprene had adverse effects on lobster larvae. It was toxic to stage II larvae at 1 ppb. Stage IV larvae were more resistant, but did exhibit significant increases in molt frequency beginning at exposures of 5 ppb. Juvenile lobsters exhibited variations in tissue susceptibility to methoprene: hepatopancreas appeared to be the most vulnerable, reflected by environmental concentrations of methoprene inhibiting almost all protein synthesis in this organ.
Our results indicated that methoprene concentrates in the hepatopancreas, nervous tissue and epidermal cells of the adult lobster. Methoprene altered the synthesis and incorporation of chitoproteins (cuticle proteins) into adult postmolt lobster explant shells. SDS PAGE analyses of adult post–molt shell extracts revealed changes in the synthesis of chitoproteins in the methoprene-treated specimens, suggesting that methoprene affects the normal pathway of lobster cuticle synthesis and the quality of the post-molt shell. Although it is likely that a combination of factors led to the reduced lobster population in WLIS, methoprene may have contributed both by direct toxic effects and by disrupting homeostatic events under endocrine control.
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  C. R. Magel, J. D. Shields, and R. W. Brill Idiopathic Lesions and Visual Deficits in the American Lobster (Homarus americanus) From Long Island Sound, NY Biol. Bull., August 1, 2009; 217(1): 95 - 101. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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