Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons levels and potential biomarkers in a native South American marine fish

RECABARRÉN-VILLALÓN, TATIANA; RONDA, ANA C.; ARIAS, ANDRÉS H.

Regional Studies in Marine Science

Elsevier BV

Año: 2019

2352-4855

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can cause adverse effects on ecosystems and organisms from aquatic environments due to their high toxicity (for its carcinogenic and mutagenic characteristics), persistence in the environment and bioaccumulation ability. Particularly in fish, a minimal exposure to PAHs can induce hepatic damage and physiological and biochemical disorders. Consequently, the use of biomarkers can be a useful (economic, rapid and sensible) as a diagnostic tool to measure the health of an ecosystem, detecting alterations in organisms which serve as early warning of pollution. In this sense, the present work assess the levels of 17 PAHs in a wild fish muscle (Cynoscion guatucupa) and proposes to relate them with lipid peroxidation (TBARs) and the activity of different metabolic enzymes (ALT, AST and LDH) in liver and muscle tissues, in order to test their usefulness as biomarkers of PAHs pollution in field samples. Results showed a dominance of low molecular weight PAHs ranging from 0.02 to 24.22 ng.g-1,w.w. allowing to classify fish samples with a certain degree of pollution. Total PAHs positively correlated with muscular levels of TBARs (p < 0.05) suggesting that lipid peroxidation could be produced by the pollutants. Moreover, total PAHs correlated positively with LDH activity (p < 0.01) and negatively with liver AST and ALT activities (p