Investigation Of Aquatic Breathing And Proteomic Analysis Of Skin Collagen Of Turtles (Chinemys Reevesii)

Turtles, which survived for over a few hundred-millionyears in evolution, may bear important insight in the field ofbionics and medicine. Much attention has been paid to theturtles' longevity. Researches on turtles' macrobioticfactors, active substances and the investigation ofanti-carcinoma and sanitarian drug are one of the scientificheats. Whereas the research on turtles' longevity is verycomplicated, which requires the collaboration of scientistsfrom Bionics, Ecology, Physiology, genetics, Biochemistry andmany other aspects. In order to understand the mechanisms ofturtle's longevity, respiration and anti-anoxic capability ofTurtles (Chinemys reevesii) submerged in the water wasinvestigated. At the same time, the collagen protein in the skinof turtle (Chinemys reevesii) was also studied.The studies made in the thesis are summarized as follows:1. Applying a self-made oxygen-controlled equipment, therespiratory ability, oxygen consumption and survival limit ofturtles (Ceoclemys reevesii) were studied when turtles weresubmerged under water. It was showed that: capability ofturtles to tolerate low oxygen tensions was remarkably strong.Without oxygen supply, turtles submerged in the water weresurvived until oxygen content below 1.5-2.0mg/L in thisexperimental system. By the reduction of aquatic oxygen content, turtles seemed to auto-adjust themselves respiration frequency,shaping obvious respiratory wave. The maximum oxygen uptake was0.0623 mg/min, whereas the minimum was 0.0008 mg/min and theaverage was 0.0245 mg/min. While light had no significanteffect on turtles' respiration and aquatic oxygen content(T₁=0.8879 and T₂=-1.3599, P＞0.05), temperature induced highlysignificant effect (T₁=13.6972, P＜0.001 and T₂=-3.2019,P＜0.01). These results are of importance to explain themechanism of turtle' s longevity and explore theenergy-transfer process during turtle's respiration. Thedesign of the experimental equipment can be further used in theresearch related with the respiratory metabolism and energytransfer of different aquatic animals.2. The collagen of turtle-skin was extracted and studiedafter pepsin-digestion. The composition of collagens ofturtle-skin, cow-skin and pig-skin were also compared, itshowed that the content of amino acid was similar betweencollagen protein in the skin of turtles and typeâ… collagen ofhuman, the related coefficient is 0.9971. The contents of aminoacid of pigskin, turtle-skin was different. Gly content,account for 25.41%, is the highest among 15 analysed amino acidand Tyr, His and Met content were very low, account for 0.84% and 0.09%. The contents of Ala, Leu and Tyr in turtle-skinwere much more than that in pig-skin.Results obtained in this study have established a preliminarily foundation for future studies in the fieldrelated.