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International Journal of Marine Science 2014, Vol.4, No.52, 1-9
http://ijms.biopublisher.ca
1
Research Article Open Access
Cytogenetic Effects of Chosen Heavy Metals to Marine Mussel,
Modiolus
philippinarum
L. underAcute Stress
C.M. Ramakritinan , M. Yokesh Babu, L. Palanikumar
#
, T. Muneeswaran, A.K. Kumaraguru
Department of Marine and Coastal Studies School of Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai–625021, India
# Present Address: School of Nano-Bioscience and Chemical Engineering Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology Ulsan Metropolitan City,
689-798, Korea
Corresponding author email
Email addresses of co-authors: MYB
LP
TM
AKK
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol.4, No.52 doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0052
Received: 11 Jan., 2014
Accepted: 13 May, 2014
Published: 21 Aug., 2014
Copyright
©
2014 Ramakritinan et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Ramakritinan et al., 2014, Cytogenetic Effects of Chosen Heavy Metals to Marine Mussel,
Modiolus philippinarum
L. under Acute Stress, International Journal
of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.52 1
-
9 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0052)
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to investigate the acute toxicity of heavy metals such as Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn and Hg to
mussel
Modiolus philippinarum
of Pudumadam Coast, Gulf of Mannar under continuous flow through bioassay test method. The
frequency of nuclear abnormalities such as micronucleus (MN) and binucleus (BN) induced by five heavy metals in bivalve mollusc,
M. philippinarum
was examined over 96h at intervals of 24h under continuous flow-through toxicity bioassay condition. The
estimated LC
50
values were 0.019 mg Cu. L
-1
, 0.158 mg Cd. L
-1
, 2.025 mg Pb. L
-1
, 2.823 mg Zn. L
-1
and 0.007 mg Hg. L
-1
for 96 h
exposure. Mercury was found to be highly toxic and zinc was less toxic to
M. philippinarum
. MN and BN induction showed a
significant increase (P < 0.05) with increasing concentration of all five metals. Maximum frequency of nuclear abnormalities was
observed for mercury treated mussel after 96h exposure.
Keywords
Continuous flow-through test,
Modiolus philippinarum
, LC
50
, cytotoxicity, micronucleus, binucleus
Introduction
The health of the human life depends on the vitality
and vigour of the environment. Deterioration in the
environment can cause severe damage to the human
health. Also aquatic environment, which covers
two-thirds of the planet, is inhabited by the majority
of extant species in different ecological niches;
moreover many of them are important sources of
human food (Frenzilli et al., 2009). Heavy metals are
natural components of the biosphere. Living
organisms need trace quantity of some heavy metals
which include iron, cobalt, copper, manganese,
molybdenum, strontium, vanadium and zinc though
some are essential for life (Saidi, 2010). However, the
excessive amount of metals can be detrimental to
living organisms. In the meanwhile, other heavy
metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury, chromium
etc., in the marine environment i.e., both in seawater
and sediments, can accumulate over times into aquatic
food chain organisms causing serious illness
(Camargo and Alonso, 2006). Sediments and the biota
are general metal reservoirs in aquatic environments.
The concentrations of heavy metals in water may vary
considerably depending on annual and seasonal
fluctuations in physico-chemical parameters (Aguilera
et al.,
2006). The elevated levels of metals in seawater
and sediments can cause a severe reduction or,
sometimes, elimination of intolerant species, thereby
having a significant effect on the diversity and trophic
structure of the biological community (Gbaruko and
Friday, 2007). The level of accumulation in biota is
depend on the chemical effects of metal, its tendency
to bind to particular materials and, on the lipid content
and composition of the biological tissues as well as
the quality of seawater (Gbaruko and Friday, 2007).
Industrial effluents and agricultural run-off into
aquatic systems almost certainly burden the ecosystem
with mixtures of toxic or potentially toxic metals.
They are not only deteriorating the quality of seawater
but also disrupt the food web and, bring about
morphological, physiological and cytogenetic changes
in the aquatic organisms. They also cause mutagenic
and carcinogenic effects on living beings (Yadav and