Zakaria, Mohamad Pauzi

Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository

UPM Research Report 1998: Volume 2THE USE OF MOLECULAR MARKER FORIDENTIFICATION OF OIL POLLUTION INMALAYSIAN, MARINE MUSSELSM.P. ZakariaFaculty of Science and Environmental StudiesUniversiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM, Serdang, Selangor,MalaysiaKeywords: oil pollution, marine environment, marinemussels, molecular markers, source identification.IntroductionOil spills in the Straits of Malacca has occurred frequentlyin the past few decades. The Straits of Malacca is one of thebusiest waterways in the world. It is a major route for trans-porting crude oil to East Asia and North East Asia. For thehealth of the environment, it is very important to determinethe exact source of these minor and major spills. In the pastanalyses of oil samples, oleanane (hopane molecularmarker) have been detected (Eganhouse, 1997). Oleanane isvery specific to East Asian oil. Therefore, one of the objec-tives of this study is to look for this specific hopanes in the"mussels.Marine mussels is an excellent organisms to uptakethe oil residues reaching coastal areas over long period oftime (Moldowan and Peters, 1993). They are immobile spe-cies; persistent to high level of pollution; large populationfor repeated samplings and important seafood, among oth-ers.Materials and MethodsMature adult population of mussels (25 individuals) weresampled and tissues removed. The tissues were homoge-nised and extracted. The extracts was purified and fraction-ated using silica gel column chromatography. Fractionatedcomponents were analysed by capillary GC-MS for ho-panes.286Results and DiscussionOleanane were found in mussels samples. Oleanane is oneof the types of hopanes that can be used as marker moleculefor petroleum source for the Straits of Malacca. However,our past analyses of lubricating oil (BP and Petronas, Ma-laysia) did not reveal the presence of oleanane. Our presentassumption is that, BP and Petronas may not use local pe-troleum source for the lubricating oil, hence the absence ofoleanane. The use of pentacyclic triterpanes and oleananehas been suggested for biomarkers for source identificationof oil pollution in Malaysia.ConclusionsPentacyclic tripterpanes (hopanes) is extremely useful toolfor source identification of oil pollution in Malaysiancoastal environments.ReferencesEganhouse, R.P. 1997. "Molecular Markers and Environmental Or-ganic Geochemisty: An Overview", in R.P. Eganhouse, ed.,Molecular Markers in Environmental Geochemistry, AmericanChemical Society, Washington D.C. p.I-20.Moldowan, I.M. and Peters, K.E. 1993. 'The Biomarker Guide:Interpreting Molecular Fossils in Petroleum and Ancient Sedi-ments, Prentice-Hall, Englewood, N.J.Supported by IRPA Grant 08-02-04-0013

The use of molecular marker for identification of oil pollution in Malaysian, marine mussels

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The use of molecular marker for identification of oil pollution in Malaysian, marine mussels

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