Abstract
Water is impacted by a variety of increasing pressures, such as contaminants, including genotoxic pollutants. The proposed multi-biomarker approach at a sub-individual level gives a complementary indicator to the chemical and ecological parameters of the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC). By integrating biomarkers of genotoxicity and erythrocyte necrosis in the sentinel fish species the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) through active biomonitoring of six stations of the Artois-Picardie watershed, north France, our work aimed to improve the already existing biomarker approach. Even if fish in all stations had high levels of DNA strand breaks, the multivariate analysis (PCA), followed by hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC), improved discrimination among stations by detecting an increase of nuclear DNA content variation (Etaing, St Rémy du Nord, Artres and Biache-St-Vaast) and erythrocyte necrosis (Etaing, St Rémy du Nord). The present work highlighted that the integration of these biomarkers of genotoxicity in a multi-biomarker approach is appropriate to expand physiological parameters which allow the targeting of new potential effects of contaminants.
Highlights
In order to protect, restore and use sustainable water resources of continental hydrosystems, the European Commission set up the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) which aims at achieving good water quality in 2027 [1] by promoting the chemical and ecological status of freshwaters
As observed by Catteau et al [11], regardless of the station, a high survival rate of fish was noticed (>93.3%), highlighting a good general health status, except for fish caged in Courrières, which were characterised by high mortality (63%)
This work has expanded the existing battery of biomarkers measured in three-spined sticklebacks during an active biomonitoring of genotoxicity, from DNA strand breaks and chromosomal aberration to erythrocyte mortality
Summary
Restore and use sustainable water resources of continental hydrosystems, the European Commission set up the Water Framework Directive (WFD, 2000/60/EC) which aims at achieving good water quality in 2027 [1] by promoting the chemical and ecological status of freshwaters. The chemical approach ignores toxicity, as well as mixture effects of contaminants [2], and ecological assessment is often considered as an a posteriori approach lacking preliminary information on toxicity [3], despite the inclusion of biomarkers in the WFD revision being promoted by scientists [2,4,5,6]. Multi-biomarker approaches are increasingly recommended to reflect the main physiological states of an organism [9,10,11]. This approach is relevant to evaluating the ecotoxicity of surface waters, which are regarded as receptacles of a huge diversity of xenobiotics [12]
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