Correlation between heavy metal ions (copper, zinc, lead) concentrations and root length of Allium cepa L. in polluted river water

Abstract

The present work was performed using the common onion (

Evaluation of the cytotoxic and genotoxic potential of water from the River Paraíba do Sul, in Brazil, with the Allium cepa L. test

“…Furthermore, test plants can be directly exposed to complex mixtures or environmental samples either in the laboratory or in situ. Because of the large size of their chromosomes, some higher plants are suitable for cytological analysis and the responses so obtained are highly correlated with those seen in other biological systems, thus making plant tests also good candidates for evaluating the genotoxicity of environmental samples (Fiskesjö, 1985;Palacio et al, 2005;Egito et al, 2007).…”

“…Plant assays and the Allium cepa test, particularly, have some advantages over microbial and mammalian cell tests because they are highly sensitive to many environmental pollutants (Fiskesjö, 1985), including heavy metals (Panda et al, 1996;Palacio et al, 2005), and are also useful for monitoring the potential synergistic tion of cell division (Fiskesjö, 1985;Odeigah et al, 1997;Babatunde and Bakare, 2006;Egito et al, 2007). Changes in MI estimate the altered frequency of cell division and are an indication that cell proliferation is affected (Marcano et al, 2004).…”

Bioassays with Plants in the Monitoring of Water Quality

“…Similar results were also observed by [27] and [28] when estimating the genotoxicity in pharmaceutical/hospital effluents samples and [29] when assessing water samples from a lake environmentally affected with heavy metals. Other works also observed the environmental impact of the presence of heavy metals in rivers, lakes and soil aqueous extracts [30][31][32][33][34]. In addition to the domestic sewage [26,[35][36][37], industrial effluents are also historically impacting: [38] submitted seeds of A. cepa to the effluent from a textile industry and observed a mutagenic effect, the type of cell damage may be transmitted to subsequent generations, possibly affecting the organism as a whole, as well as the local biota exposed to the effluent discharge.…”

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“…Segundo Chandra et al (2005), alguns metais mesmo sendo essenciais às plantas e aos animais como é o caso do ferro, quando combinados com metais pesados como, por exemplo, cromo e níquel ou outros compostos orgânicos/inorgânicos podem exercer sinergismo, induzindo uma alta porcentagem de células micronucleadas. Palácio et al (2005) detectaram que metais pesados contidos em água poluída na presença de vários outros compostos e nutrientes essenciais devido a uma alta demanda bioquímica de oxigênio (DBO) têm suas toxicidades diminuídas em relação aos mesmos metais quando contidos em água limpa, possivelmente devido à formação de complexos químicos que se formaram e foram precipitados, reduzindo a disponibilidade desses metais dissolvidos na água. Possivelmente, a água do rio no mês de agosto poderia ter recebido uma carga orgânica de origem doméstica mais alta, disponibilizando uma maior quantia de nutrientes na água e elevando a DBO, reagindo com compostos tóxicos e precipitando-se no fundo do rio.…”