Assessment of genotoxic potential of the treated hospital wastewater using cytogenetic assays

Abstract

The cytogenetic study using hospital effluent was carried out engaging three cytogenetic end points—chromosomal aberration (CA) assay, mitotic indices (MIs), and micronucleus (MN) Analysis. These bioassays were performed in hematopoietic bone marrow cells of Mus musculus. The experiment commenced with the collection of hospital effluent from the final outlet when wastewater gets collected after undergoing treatment by a multistep process. The pure treated sample water was collected at different times between March 2019 to January 2020 and was given ad libitum to mice at its low (90% dilution) and high (pure form), i.e. 100% concentration for 3 different durations i.e. 7, 15, and 30 days, respectively. The results indicated a significant (P < 0.01) decrease in the MI in all the groups but was more pronounced in the group which was given 100% concentrated sample water collected in the month of March 2019. Besides this, the major finding was presence of CAs like breaks, fragments, rings, and pulverization in bone marrow cells in different groups; however, the frequency of these aberrations varied from group to group. A significant (P < 0.01) increase in MN Induction and decreased ratio (P < 0.01) of polychromatic to normonochromatic erythrocytes were observed in samples collected in month of March both at 10% and 100% concentrations. However, decrease in the ratio was observed in the samples of September and January at low-concentration sample water. The results thus indicated that there was some lacuna in the treatment process earlier in the month of March, which was rectified to some extent in the subsequent months. Hence, the treated wastewater collected in the month of January next year was more suitable for its use than other samples. Summary: These findings thus draw attention toward ensuring efficiency of the treatment plant and quality of water by the hospital management before it being disposed off into the municipal supply; a step that can help society to live a healthy life. With these findings, it is conveyed that all the hospitals, diagnostic labs, and other health care establishments must pay utmost attention at liquid waste disposal mechanism to make environment pollution-free.

Monitoring hospital effluents through physico‐chemical characterization and genotoxic testing

“…Distortion of microtubule, kinetochore, and other macromolecules associated with the centromeric region, which results in the dysfunctioning of the mitotic apparatus and ultimately lagging of chromosomes, can also be the root cause of aberrations in chromosomes. Increased frequency of occurrence of acentric chromosomes can be correlated with the increased frequency of micronuclei formed from aggregation of whole chromosomes as a result of aneugenic activity of the wastewater (Mathur et al, 2022). Yet another possible mechanism for wastewater‐induced chromosomal aberration involves the formation of free radicals, either via autoxidation, or by enzyme‐catalyzed oxidation of organic compound in the test sample.…”

“…Monitoring, therefore, becomes of utmost importance (Parashar et al, 2022) wherein quality of water can be checked at different times in a year and its toxicity testing should be done from time to time (Fahrenfeld et al, 2022). In this direction, Mathur et al, 2022 performed battery of bioassays to check the efficiency of the treatment plants installed at various health care establishments. Likewise, Shajari et al, 2022 had prepared ecofriendly nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) to deliver antibacterial agent Eugenol to control bacterial growth in hospital wastewater.…”

Incidence of Morphological Defects in Sperm of Mice Exposed to Hospital Effluent

“…These pollutants might be hazardous when they percolate into watersheds or penetrate into natural habitats, leading to the contamination of ground water and drinking water. This may pose serious harm to human health and the aquatic ecosystem [ 2 , 3 ].With the objective of finding a plausible explanation for reproductive toxicity in mice, we tested hospital effluent that was supposedly treated. We determined the physico-chemical characteristics of water samples to assess the basic water quality and examined changes in sperm morphology and morphometry using mice as an experimental model.…”