BIVALVE HEMOCYANIN: STRUCTURAL, FUNCTIONAL, AND PHYLOGENETIC RELATIONSHIPS

¹ Department of Biology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
² Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97331
³ Marine Science Center and Biology Department, Northeastern University, Nahant, Massachusetts 01980

The hemocyanin-like molecule found in the blood of the most primitive bivalves (protobranchs) reversibly binds O₂. Its respiratory properties and its sedimentation behavior are both distinctive. Although its electron-dense image looks like that of the gastropod hemocyanins, its molecular weight differs from those of all other molluscan Hcs and is more consistent with the concept of bivalve hemocyanin as a pair of octopod hemocyanins. Bivalve hemocyanin occurs in the solemyoids as well as the nuculoids, which argues for the integrity of the Protobranchia as a natural taxon. The ancestral bivalve O₂ carrier was previously believed to be a simple intracellular hemoglobin, which is found in the less primitive Pteriomorpha. The most obvious interpretation of the present results, however, is that hemocyanin is the primitive bivalve O₂ cannier and that it was replaced by the red blood cell, which originated at least twice: once in the pteriomorph bivalves and at least once in other taxa.