Metabolic enzymes evaluation in relation to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals tissue concentrations in Ramnogaster arcuata in Bahía Blanca Estuary

ANA CAROLINA RONDA; ANA LAURA OLIVA; ANA CAROLINA LABUDÍA; ANDRÉS ARIAS; MELINA ORAZI; SANDRA BOTTÉ; JORGE MARCOVECCHIO

Río de Janeriro

Congreso; International Conference on Ecohydrology; 2017

Universidade Estadual Norte Fluminense and UNESCO Chair in Ecohydrology

Anthropogenic activity in Bahía Blanca Estuary (BBE), Argentina, causes a chronic pollutants input with continuous environmental alteration. Quality of marine water in this area has been evaluated through quantification of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals (HMs). However, these studies have not considered their ecotoxicological effects on marine organisms. In this work, biochemical parameters in Ramnogaster arcuata (resident fish species in BBE) were analyzed in muscle and liver and related to concentration of 17 PAHs and 6 HMs in muscle. Fishes from a size class were collected in spring of 2015. Protein content and enzyme activities in muscle and liver were determined using commercial kits. PAHs were determined through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry while HMs were determined by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy.We found that R. arcuata muscle have low-moderate PAHs levels. In liver tissue, aspartate aminotrasferase and alanine aminotrasferase activity correlated positively with some PAHs. In muscle tissue, aspartate aminotrasferase correlated positively with a few PAHs and lactate dehidrogenase correlated negatively with most of them. On the other hand, we have found HMs concentrations below permitted limits in muscle. However, most of the enzyme activities in liver tissue correlated negatively with them, while only lactate dehydrogenase in muscle tissue correlated negatively with Cr.Taken together, results obtained suggest that metabolic enzymes in muscle are related with PAHs concentration while in liver are related with HMs concentration, suggesting that these enzymes could be used as diagnostic tools to evaluate the differential ecotoxicity of contaminants in R. arcuata from BBE.