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Impact on the antioxidant system, histology, and cell death of zebrafish liver after exposure to industrial sludge leachate

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Abstract

The improper disposal of sludge is a still-present phenomenon in China. The leachate formed at the bottom of the sludge pile would cause toxicological effects on aquatic organisms and affect the health of humans by entering the surrounding rivers and groundwater. In this study, the hepatotoxicity of zebrafish induced by sludge leachate was assessed by antioxidant enzyme activities, semi-quantitative histopathological assessment, and TUNEL apoptosis assay. The results indicated that the leachate would induce oxidative stress and eventually lead to an increase in lipid peroxide after a 7-day exposure. The histopathological indexes demonstrated that exposure to leachate would cause histological damage by circulatory disturbances, regressive changes, progressive changes, and inflammatory responses. According to the TUNEL results, it could be inferred that apoptotic hepatocytes increased after exposure for 7 days due to oxidative stress and histological damage. Overall, this study provided a valuable approach to assessing the toxic effects of sludge leachate and described the underlying mechanism of leachate-induced hepatotoxicity in zebrafish. This work will generate new insights into the ecological toxicity of leachate and promote the development of sludge disposal in China.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

The authors would be grateful to the National Key Research and Development Program of China (no. 2019YFC1906303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177376), and the Wuxi Science and Technology Development Funds (no. N20201007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental and Civil Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaorui Wang, Kunlun Yang, Peng Gu, Manman Li & Hengfeng Miao

  2. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Guizhou University, Guiyang, 550025, People’s Republic of China

    Xiaorui Wang, Yu Zheng & Yonggui Wu

  3. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Northwest University of Agriculture and Forestry Science and Technology, Yanglin, 712100, People’s Republic of China

    Hongyue Wu

Authors
  1. Xiaorui Wang
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  5. Yu Zheng
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  6. Manman Li
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Contributions

Xiaorui Wang: Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, and writing. Hongyue Wu: Validation and data curation. Kunlun Yang: Resources and writing—review and editing. Peng Gu: Resources and writing—review and editing. Yu Zheng: Validation and formal analysis. Manman Li: Validation and formal analysis. Yonggui Wu: Resources and writing—review and editing. Hengfeng Miao: Writing—review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hengfeng Miao.

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All animal experiments were in accordance with the current Chinese legislation and were approved by Guizhou University (grant no.EAE-GZU-2020-P018).

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Wang, X., Wu, H., Yang, K. et al. Impact on the antioxidant system, histology, and cell death of zebrafish liver after exposure to industrial sludge leachate. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 24212–24222 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23788-x

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