RESEARCH ARTICLE Cadmium Induces Apoptosis in Freshwater Crab Sinopotamon henanense through Activating Calcium Signal Transduction Pathway

Calcium ion (Ca2+) is one of the key intracellular signals, which is implicated in the regula-tion of cell functions such as impregnation, cell proliferation, differentiation and death. Cad-mium (Cd) is a toxic environmental pollutant that can disturb cell functions and even lead to cell death. Recently, we have found that Cd induced apoptosis in gill cells of the freshwater crab Sinopotamon henanense via caspase activation. In the present study, we further investigated the role of calcium signaling in the Cd-induced apoptosis in the animals. Our data showed that Cd triggered gill cell apoptosis which is evidenced by apoptotic DNA frag-mentation, activations of caspases-3,-8 and-9 and the presence of apoptotic morphologi-cal features. Moreover, Cd elevated the intracellular concentration of Ca2+, the protein concentration of calmodulin (CaM) and the activity of Ca2+-ATPase in the gill cells of the crabs. Pretreatment of the animals with ethylene glycol-bis-(b-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N’,N’-tetraacetic acid (EGTA), Ca2+ chelator, inhibited Cd-induced activation of caspases-3,-8 and-9 as well as blocked the Cd-triggered apoptotic DNA fragmentation. The apoptotic morphological features were no longer observed in gill cells pretreated with the Ca2+ signal-ing inhibitors before Cd treatment. Our results indicate that Cd evokes gill cell apoptosis through activating Ca2+-CaM signaling transduction pathway