Histopathological changes in the gills of fresh water fish, Catla catla exposed to electroplating effluent

Abstract

Histopathology changes have been widely used as biomarkers in the evaluation of the health of fish exposed to contaminants, one of the great advantage of using histopathological biomarkers in environmental monitoring is that this category of biomarkers allows examining specific target organs including gills that are responsible for vital functions. Such as respiration, accumulation, biotransformation of metals in fish and may cause many diseases structural alternations and functional changes in the organs of animals. Histology acts as an integrated parameter, providing a more complete evaluation of the organisms health, effectively monitoring the effects of exposure to environmental pollutants. The electroplating effluent was collected from vellalore station, Coimbatore. The fresh water fish Catla catla was selected as the test animals. 1/10th of 96 hrs LC50 was taken as sublethal concentration of electroplating effluent. After the stipulated period of exposure (24, 48, 72 and 96 hrs) fishes were sacrificed and gill was isolated and used for histopathological studies.