Comparative effects of the water accommodated fraction of three oils on mussels. 2. Quantitative alterations in the structure of the digestive tubules.

1. Mussels have been exposed to the water accommodated fraction (WAF) of Ural and Maya crude oils and of a lubricant oil for 91 days and the digestive gland structure has been studied (a) by planimetry, to calculate the mean epithelial thickness (MET), the mean diverticular radius (MDR) and the mean luminal radius (MLR) of the digestive tubules and (b) by subjective tubule grading, to determine the relative (%) occurrence of the different tubule types found in the digestive gland (holding, absorpting, disintegrating, reconstituting and necrotic tubules). 2. Exposure to the 3 types of WAF leads to lowered MET and MET/MDR values, and concomitant higher MLR/MET values. In the case of lubricant- and Ural-WAF exposures, MDR decreases significantly at increasing exposure-doses. 3. Exposure to oil WAFs leads to decreased percentages of holding and absorpting tubules. This decrease is concomitant with an increase of disintegrating tubules in lubricant- and Ural-WAF exposures, and with an increase of regenerating tubules in the Maya-WAF exposure. 4. The statistical significance of the differences found between control and exposed mussels is better at Day 21 than at any other further sampling day (35, 77 and 91). 5. Multiple correlation coefficients between all the percentages of tubule types and each planimetric parameter present an excellent statistical significance.