[The umbilical blood levels of lead and some other toxic metals as a biomarker of environment-induced exposure].

Groups of pregnant women, which made up in Revda, Pervouralsk, Krasnouralsk, and Verkh-Isetsky District of Yekaterinburg, were studied. Tests of umbilical blood samples (UB) for the levels of calcium, iron, chromium, manganese, zinc, nickel, cadmium, lead, arsenic, copper, and mercury have established that the mean concentration of lead and the proportion of samples with elevated UB lead concentrations depend on how close the residential area is located to the major industrial source of emission of this toxic metal into ambient air. This correlation is less marked for other metals or it is not found.

[Action of cadmium on the elemental composition and cellular morphology of the hepatopancreas, kidneys and gonads of the mussel Mytilus edulis and scallop Mizuhopecten yessoensis].

Studies have been made on the content and distribution of Cd, K, Mg, Ca, S and P in organs and cells of mussels and scallops before and after immersion in water containing cadmium chloride. In normal molluscs, the lowest content of Cd was found in the gonads; cadmium content of the hepatopancreas and kidney in the scallop is correspondingly 20 and 40 times higher than in the mussel. After immersion in water with cadmium (250 micrograms/l in summer experiments and 500 micrograms/l in spring ones), cadmium content of the hepatopancreas and kidney of the scallop was found to be also higher than that in the mussel, although the difference is less significant, being dependent on the season of year.

[Effect of diesel fuel hydrocarbons and cadmium on the development of sea urchin progeny].

The long-term keeping of sea urchins of the genus Strongylocentrotus in a sea water with sublethal concentrations of the diesel fuel hydrocarbons (0.04-0.3 mg/l) or cadmium (0.

[Morpho-functional changes in the ovaries of the sea urchin Strongylocentrotus intermedius after exposure to cadmium].

The ovaries were studied in the sea urchins kept in a sea water added with 1, 50 and 100 micrograms/l cadmium chloride for 5, 15, 40, 72 and 130 days. The gland reaction depended on the drug dose and exposure. A short exposure (5 and 15 days) stimulated the development of a larger, as compared with the control, number of oogonia and raised the activity of acid and alkaline phosphatases.