Abstract
Estuarine edible crab, Scylla serrata (Crustacea: Decapoda) occupy diverse habitats and their strategy of survival is correlated to multidimensional immune responses and its inhabiting in bio‐unsafe environment is under constant threat of physiological stress caused by diverse xenobiotics including arsenic. Experimental crabs, exposed to 1–3 ppm of sodium arsenite for a maximum period of 30 days in controlled laboratory condition indicated that arsenic as cytotoxicant as well as immunotoxicant causes damage and an alteration in cytotoxic status and antioxidant status in hemocytes. In this study, we investigated the intrahemocytic production of phenoloxidase, super oxide anion, nitric oxide, and its subsequent scavenging under the exposure of sodium arsenite. Arsenic induced variations in generation of cytotoxic molecules as well as antioxidant enzymes activity in intrahemocyte is indicative to possible immune‐alteration of the animal distributed in bio‐unsafe environment. Arsenic induced impairment of immune response may initiate an opportunistic growth of microbes in crab. Chronic exposure of S. serrata to arsenic may lead to decline of this economically important endemic species in Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve of West Bengal.
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