Acanthocephalan Worms Mitigate the Harmful Impacts of Heavy Metal Pollution on Their Fish Hosts

Toxic metal pollutants in aquatic environments and infestationwith intestinal helminths adversely affect the fish health, as well as fish consumers. Acanthocephalan worms in fish intestine have a high potential to absorb and bioaccumulate different heavy metals, especially toxic ones, from the intes...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Fishes 2021-12, Vol.6 (4), p.49
Main Authors: Hassanine, Reda, Al-Hasawi, Zaki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquatic environment
bioaccumulation
biochemical parameters
Blood
Cadmium
Enzymes
Fish
Fishing
Glucose
Heavy metals
Hosts
Intestine
Intestines
Lead
Liver
Metabolism
Parasites
Phosphatase
Pollutants
Pollution
Proteins
Sclerocollum rubrimaris
Serum
Siganus rivulatus
Tegument
Triglycerides
Urea
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Toxic metal pollutants in aquatic environments and infestationwith intestinal helminths adversely affect the fish health, as well as fish consumers. Acanthocephalan worms in fish intestine have a high potential to absorb and bioaccumulate different heavy metals, especially toxic ones, from the intestine via their tegument with greater efficiency than the fish intestinal wall. Herein, 47 specimens of the fish Siganusrivulatus were trapped in the Red Sea, Egypt, from a chronically polluted bay. All were intoxicatedwith Cd and Pb; 20 (42.5%) were uninfected with any intestinal worm, but the other 27 (57.5%) were infected only by the intestinal acanthocephalan Sclerocollum rubrimaris. The number of individual worms in a fish host (infrapopulation size) ranged from 32 to 236. As a reference group, 22 uncontaminated–uninfected specimens of S. rivulatus were trapped from a small unpolluted bay. Our results revealed that infection with acanthocephalans alleviatesthe harmful effectsof toxic metalson their fish hosts by: (1) lowering the elevated concentrations of both Cd and Pb in fish liver; (2) lowering the elevated levels of liver enzymes (ALT, AST, ALP, and GGT), glucose, triglycerides, and urea in fish blood serum; and (3) raising the declined levels of total protein and albumin in fish blood serum. All of these were dependent on S. rubrimaris infrapopulation size in fish intestine.
ISSN:2410-3888
2410-3888
DOI:10.3390/fishes6040049