engleski

Genotoxicity assessment of heavy metal mixtures by Lemna minor L.

The environmental risk assessment for protection of aquatic ecosystems is usually based on laboratory toxicity data considering individual metals. Since environmental contamination is more likely to be a result of metal mixture exposure, the possible interactions of common heavy metals classified as environmental pollutants were investigated. Therefore, Lemna minor plants were exposed to Cu, Zn and Cd under the standardized test conditions of the ISO protocol 20079. Metal treatments of 5 µM Cd supplemented with Zn (25 and 50 µM) or Cu (2.5 and 5 µM) as well individual metal treatments of the same concentration were used. The genotoxic effect was evaluated by the alkaline version of the Comet assay after 4th and 7th day of metal exposure. In addition, the concentrations of the test metals were determined in order to analyze the dynamics of bioaccumulation in exposed plants. When plants were individually exposed to heavy metals, after 4 days of treatment only Cd-treated plants showed statistically significant genotoxic effect compared to control plants. On contrary to this, when plants were treated with Cd in combination with either Cu or Zn, synergistic effect was observed on 4th day, but antagonistic effect on 7th day of experiment. These results suggest that further studies investigating various aspect of heavy metals interaction are needed for deeper genotoxicity understanding.

Comet assay; genotoxicity; Lemna

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