Structural and functional impairment of the hypothalamo-pituitary-interrenal axis in fish exposed to bleached kraft mill effluent in the St Maurice River, Quebec

Abstract

The effects of bleached kraft mill effluent (BKME) on blood cortisol levels and the morphology of the pituitary-interrenal axis were investigated in two species of teleost fish, the northern pike, Esox lucius, and the yellow perch, Perca flavescens, sampled upstream and downstream from a pulp and paper mill on the St Maurice River, Quebec. Fish were acutely stressed by a standardized capture and sampling protocol at both sites, and their ability to elevate blood cortisol levels in response to the capture stress was compared. Blood cortisol levels in fish from the upstream site (>100 ng/ml plasma) were higher than the levels in fish from the BKME site, and the pituitary corticotropes and the interrenal steroidogenic cells of the upstream fish were larger and had larger nuclei compared with cells from the downstream fish. The low blood cortisol levels in fish exposed to BKME were correlated to cellular atrophy within the hypothalamo-pituitary-interrenal (HPI) axis. The reduced ability to elevate blood cortisol in response to an acute stress may be an endocrine dysfunction occuring in fish chronically exposed to chemical stressors in their environment