Abstract
The Itaqui Port Complex (northeastern Brazil) is one of the largest Brazilian port facilities, whose effluents and waste are dumped directly into the estuarine waters. Although environmental monitoring has been a concern around this site, there has been no toxicogenetics study on organisms living in this environment. Thus, we assessed the toxicogenetics potential of the estuarine waters surrounding Itaqui, using the native catfish Sciades herzbergii as a biomonitor. We found a significantly higher frequency of genetic damage and mutations in the animals collected near to Itaqui in both seasons compared to the reference site (distant from Itaqui with no port activities). We also quantified chemical elements in the surface water and sediments near the port and found that clorine, phosphorus, zinc, and boron were above the limits set by the Brazilian legislation. We suggest that such contaminants are involved in the origin of DNA damage. Moreover, we recommend including toxicogenetics assays in the environmental monitoring of pollutants, as well as in the definition of their allowable limits, as they could be used as law enforcement tools and help to predict large-scale contamination events associated with port activities.
Highlights
Coastal environments such as estuaries have been the main sites for human settlement
The water chemistry analysis at the Itaqui Port Complex (IPC) revealed residual chlorine, total phosphorus, zinc and boron, in the rainy season, with values higher than those permitted by the Brazilian legislation
We demonstrate that fish collected near the Itaqui Port Complex have more DNA damage and mutations, suggesting the presence of xenobiotics capable of inducing genetic harm and mutagenesis in this area
Summary
Coastal environments such as estuaries have been the main sites for human settlement. Such a preference imposes a large number of stressors on these areas, with chemical-derived xenobiotics posing the most important threat to the biota (Martins & Costa 2015). Toxicogenetics assays are highly effective methods for evaluating the impact of environmental contamination (Scalon et al 2010, Martins & Costa 2015), especially considering that many substances released into natural environments (and their resulting metabolites) have not had their potential impacts been fully characterized yet (Van der Oost et al 2003). Genotoxic and mutagenic effects have been described in animals exposed to estuarine environments near ports (e.g., Barsiene 2002, Domingos et al 2009, Barsiene et al 2012)
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