Genotoxicity of Coke Plant Wastewater on Root Tips of Vicia faba

Abstract

Pollution caused by coal conversion wastewater has been a severe problem for decades in China due to the use of coal as the main energy source. Therefore, it is important to study its toxic effects on plants, animals, and humans. In the present study, the genotoxicity of coke plant wastewater was studied using the Vicia faba root-tip cytogenetic bioassay. The results show that coke plant wastewater decreased the mitotic index (MI) and caused significant increases of micronucleus (MCN) frequencies and anaphase aberration (AA) frequencies in a concentration-dependent manner (Chemical oxygen demand (CODcr) as a measure of coke plant wastewater concentration) and a time-dependent manner. The results also show that components of coke plant wastewater may be genotoxic in plant cells and imply that long exposure to coke plant wastewater at low concentrations may pose a potential genotoxic risk to organisms. The results of the present study suggest that the V. faba cytogenetic bioassay is efficient, simple in genotoxicity studies of coke plant wastewater, and that there is a correlation between the genotoxicity and CODcr of coke plant wastewater.