Abstract
There are increased concerns about the thyroidal effects of many anthropogenic substances in the environment. These substances include agricultural pesticides and industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals among others. Their potential thyroidal effects are of serious health and ecological concerns, as thyroid hormones mediate numerous physiological processes, including growth regulation, general metabolism and metamorphosis in metamorphic animals. This study assessed thyroidal activities of Arsenal formulation (Imazapyr) at environmentally relevant concentrations of 0.5, 2.0 and 3.5 mg/L following a Xenopus metamorphosis assay (XEMA). The result shows that the Arsenal formulation significantly delayed the tadpole development, reduced the hind-limb length (HLL) and increased the whole-body mass (WBM) at a concentration of 3.5 mg/L relative to the control exposure. In histopathology, the formulation increased the epithelium height, at all exposure concentrations, but reduced the colloidal area at 0.5 and 2 mg/L, respectively, and the gland area at 2 mg/L relative to the control. Consequently, the Arsenal formulation is thyroid-active at environmentally relevant concentrations and poses a threat to both human and wildlife, especially metamorphic organisms. With this exposure impact, more studies are imperative to further characterise other endocrine-disrupting potential of this formulation, while future applications should be reduced or restricted to less risk environment, if it cannot be stopped from sensitive aquatic systems
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Data and materials for this study are available in a thesis online at the Stellenbosch University database via scholar.co.ac.za.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Working for Water Department, Ministry of Water Affairs, South Africa, for the supply of herbicide used in this study. We thank the Water Research Commission, South Africa, for the financial grant (Grant number K5/1952)
Funding
This study was supported by the Water Research Commission, South Africa, Research grant (Grant number K5/1952), as well as the Working for Water Department, Ministry of Water Affairs, South Africa, for the supply of all the herbicides used for this study. We declare that both the Water Research Commission and Working for Water Department, both in South Africa, did not in any way contribute to the design of the experiment, data analysis, as well as report writing and our choice of publication.
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HJ conceptualised and supervised the whole experiment, OO performed the experiment and wrote the manuscript
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The authors declare that all experiments used in this study comply with the current laws in South Africa and duly approved by the Animal Research Ethical Committee of the Stellenbosch University (Animal Ethics Permit No. SU-ACUM 12-00015).
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Babalola, O.O., van Wyk, J.H. Exposure impacts of Imazapyr formulation on larval development and thyroid histology of Xenopus laevis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 50967–50974 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14227-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14227-4