Abstract
The acute toxicity and genotoxicity of carbendazim, two impurities (3-amino-2-hydroxyphenazine and 2,3-diaminophenazine) and one metabolite (2-aminobenzimidazole) to Eisenia foetida were assessed using artificial soil test and comet assay respectively. Acute toxicity results showed carbendazim was moderately toxic to the earthworms with 14 day-LC50 of 8.6 mg/kg dry soil while 3-amino-2-hydroxyphenazine, 2,3-diaminophenazine, and 2-aminobenzimidazole were of low toxicity with 14 day-LC50 values of 19.0, 14.9, and 27.7 mg/kg dry soil respectively (nominal concentration). The olive tail moment and percentage of DNA in the tail were used as genotoxicity indices, and carbendazim could significantly induce DNA damage to the earthworm coelomocytes with obviously positive dose- and duration-response relationships while the other three substances showed similar (p = 0.05) genotoxicity results to the negative controls in all of the tests.
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This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province, China (No. 413130) and the Fundamental Scientific Research Funds for Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (Project No. 1630012013022).
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Huan, Z., Luo, J., Xu, Z. et al. Acute Toxicity and Genotoxicity of Carbendazim, Main Impurities and Metabolite to Earthworms (Eisenia foetida). Bull Environ Contam Toxicol 96, 62–69 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-015-1653-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00128-015-1653-y