The use of biomarkers to assess the impact of pollution in coastal environments of the Iberian Peninsula: a practical approach.

By M. Cajaraville, M. Bebianno, J. Blasco, C. Porte, Carmen Sarasquete, A. Viarengo. Science of the Total Environment, 2000

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Within the frame of the 2nd Iberian Congress of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (University of the Basque Country, Leioa, June 1998) a workshop was held about the use of biomarkers in marine pollution monitoring. Among others, the following biomarkers received special attention: metallothionein induction, acetylcholinesterase inhibition, cytochrome P450 system induction, imposex, lysosomal enlargement and lysosomal membrane destabilisation, and peroxisome proliferation. These biomarkers can be used to evaluate exposure to and effect of different contaminants (metals, organic xenobiotics and organometallic compounds) and they can be measured using different methodological approaches (biochemistry, cytochemistry, immunochemical methods based on the use of biotechnology). Before the application of a set of biomarkers in pollution monitoring programmes, well-defined protocols of Quality Assurance have to be established to allow adequate comparison of results. It is also necessary to include analysis of standard reference materials and to obtain detailed knowledge of basal values and seasonal variations of the biomarkers in various species, as well as to integrate the information obtained with the different biomarkers. Marine bivalve molluscs such as mussels are appropriate sentinel species for most of the biomarkers proposed except for the induction of the cytochrome P450 system, which should be measured in fish, and the degree of imposex, which is a biomarker of exposure to TBT specifically measured in certain gastropod molluscs. As a result of the workshop, a battery of biomarkers of contaminant exposure and effects are proposed that could be incorporated into programmes monitoring the quality of the coastal environment in the Iberian Peninsula. These measures would be undertaken in conjunction with chemical measures of contaminant burdens in selected sentinel species.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Ocean Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9c41dad6c3bc84d53784a500f988ff525efd0a82

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Citations in the corpus

• Endocrine disruption and metabolic changes following exposure of Cyprinus carpio to diethyl phthalate (2007, background): “It also functions as marker enzyme for the detection of lysosomes in cell fractions and can be altered by the presence of xenobiotics [28].”
• Deltamethrin induced alterations of hematological and biochemical parameters in fingerlings of Catla catla (Ham.) and their amelioration by dietary supplement of vitamin C (2011, background): “The effects of insecticide pollution on non-target organisms in the environment can be studied by detecting changes in organisms at the physiological, biochemical or molecular levels, providing ‘‘early warning’’ tools in monitoring environment quality [8,9].”
• Usefulness of Bioindicators and Biomarkers in Pollution Biomonitoring (2014, background): “Example of these biomarkers are the induction of the multiplexenobiotic Resistance (MXR) protein [28,29], Stress on stress [30], the formation of DNA adduct and other DNA alteration [31-33], and also lysosomal alteration in molluscan digestive gland cell [34,35], etc.”
• Biomarkers of oxidative stress and heavy metal levels as indicators of environmental pollution in some selected fishes in Lagos, Nigeria. (2010, background): “ability to accumulate in the environment make these Biomarkers for water pollution are early diagnostic toxicants deleterious to the aquatic environment and tools for biological effect measurement and environmental consequently to humans who depend on aquatic animals quality assessment [2].”
• Active biomonitoring in freshwater environments: early warning signals from biomarkers in assessing biological effects of diffuse sources of pollutants (2005, background): “Additional biomarkers of exposure must therefore always be utilized in association with biomarkers of effect able to define health status of the animals (Cajaraville et al., 2000).”