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Biomagnification of Copper Along the Aquatic Food Chain (Artemia franciscana, Danio rerio, and Astronotus ocellatus)

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Abstract

Nowadays, pollution of aquatic ecosystems with heavy metals is one of the most important environmental challenges due to toxicity, stability, and bioaccumulation in the environment. Heavy metals accumulate in aquatics and plant tissues and can eventually threaten human health by transmission into the food chain. For this reason, in the present study, the effect of copper sulfate (CuSO4) and its transmission in the food chain of Artemia franciscana, Danio rerio (Zebra), and Astronotus ocellatus (Oscar) were investigated. Initially, lethal concentration of Cu on Artemia was obtained in 24 h. In the first step, Zebra fishes fed with Artemia (under copper sulfate exposure (LC50)) and water (clean and 10% of CuSO4) treatments. In the second step, Oscar fishes fed with Zebra (under copper sulfate exposure (LC50)) and water (clean and 10% of CuSO4) treatments. In the last step, the concentration of Cu was measured in liver tissues of Zebra and Oscar fishes. Also, the variation of glucose and enzymes including Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and Autologous Conditioned Plasma (ACP) was measured. The results of this study showed that Cu causes histopathological changes liver tissues including hyperemia, necrosis, hepatic portal vein, hepatocyte destruction, nucleolysis, bile stasis, and biliary edema. Also, a strong positive and significant correlation was observed between Cu and increasing glucose and ALT, AST, and ACP.

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Data Availability

Data will be made available upon request.

Change history

  • 21 July 2021

    The original version of this paper was updated. The word Cooper in the article title should be changed to Copper.

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Acknowledgements

This study was a PhD thesis project of Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources as PhD research grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Fisheries and Environmental Sciences, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Gorgan, Iran

    Maryam Mirzaei VandKhanghah, Aliakbar Hedayati & Rasoul Ghorbani

  2. Faculty of Natural Resources, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

    Samaneh Nazeri

  3. Faculty of Marine Natural Resources, Khorramshahr University of Marine Science and Technology, Khorramshahr, Iran

    Hamid Mohammadi Azarm

Authors
  1. Maryam Mirzaei VandKhanghah
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  2. Aliakbar Hedayati
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  3. Samaneh Nazeri
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  4. Hamid Mohammadi Azarm
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  5. Rasoul Ghorbani
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Contributions

Maryam Mirzaeivand Khanghah: methodology; Aliakbar Hedayati: writing—review and editing; Samaneh Nazeri: formal analysis; Hamid Mohammadi Azarm: investigation; and Rasoul Ghorbani: data curation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aliakbar Hedayati.

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Ethical issue was approved by the Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The authors certify the study was performed in accordance with ethical process.

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Mirzaei VandKhanghah, M., Hedayati, A., Nazeri, S. et al. Biomagnification of Copper Along the Aquatic Food Chain (Artemia franciscana, Danio rerio, and Astronotus ocellatus). Biol Trace Elem Res 200, 1854–1860 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12011-021-02781-4

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