C.M. Ramakritinan , M. Yokesh Babu , L. Palanikumar^# , T. Muneeswaran , A.K. Kumaraguru

Department of Marine and Coastal Studies School of Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai -625021, India
# Present Address: School of Nano-Bioscience and Chemical Engineering Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology Ulsan Metropolitan City, 689-798, Korea
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2014, Vol. 4, No. 52   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0052
Received: 11 Jan., 2014    Accepted: 13 May, 2014    Published: 21 Aug., 2014

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Ramakritinan et al., 2014, Cytogenetic Effects of Chosen Heavy Metals to Marine Mussel, Modiolus philippinarum L. under Acute Stress, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.4, No.52 1-9 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2014.04.0052)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the acute toxicity of heavy metals such as Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn and Hg to mussel Modiolus philippinarum of Pudumadam Coast, Gulf of Mannar under continuous flow through bioassay test method. The frequency of nuclear abnormalities such as micronucleus (MN) and binucleus (BN) induced by five heavy metals in bivalve mollusc, M. philippinarum was examined over 96h at intervals of 24h under continuous flow-through toxicity bioassay condition. The estimated LC₅₀ values were 0.019 mg Cu. L^-1, 0.158 mg Cd. L^-1, 2.025 mg Pb. L^-1, 2.823 mg Zn. L^-1 and 0.007 mg Hg. L^-1 for 96 h exposure. Mercury was found to be highly toxic and zinc was less toxic to M. philippinarum. MN and BN induction showed a significant increase (P < 0.05) with increasing concentration of all five metals. Maximum frequency of nuclear abnormalities was observed for mercury treated mussel after 96h exposure.

Continuous flow-through test; Modiolus philippinarum; LC₅₀, cytotoxicity; micronucleus; binucleus