Toxicity of Copper on the Protein Content of Certain Tissues of Freshwater Fish, Channa

The aquatic environment has always been subjected to different types of pollutants of industrial, domestic and agricultural wastes (Mance, 1987; Kalay and Canli, 2000) which severely affect the aquatic organisms. Beaumont et al., (2000) and Almeida et al., (2001) reported that rapid industrialization in India has resulted into a substantial increase in the liquid waste (spent wash or effluent), which is traditionally being discharged into open land or in nearby natural water, causing a number of problems like threat to plant and animal lives, surface water logging, ground water contamination and salinizing of land (Ramona et al., 2001). The problems of environmental pollution and its deleterious effects on aquatic biota, including fish is receiving focus during the last few decades (Jagadeesan et al., 2001). Industrial discharges containing toxic and hazardous substances, including heavy metals (Dhanapakiam and Ramaswamy, 2001; Ghem et al., 2001; Woodling et al., 2001) harm tremendously to aquatic ecosystem. Heavy metals are natural trace components of the aquatic environment, but their levels have been increased due to domestic, industrial and agricultural wastes. It causes greatest threat to the health of Indian ecosystem (Rani et al., 2001;Desai et al., 2002; Joshi et al., 2002; Saxena, 2002) .Level of trace elements in water and fish has been studied by Ikem et al. (2003) .Heavy metals like copper induces reduction in growth and reproductive potential of ornamental fish Xiphophorus helleri (James et al., 2003).Discharge of heavy metals into the aquatic environment can change both aquatic species diversity and ecosystem due to their toxic and accumulative behavior. Aquatic organisms including fish accumulate metals many times higher than present in water or sediments (Madhusudan et al., 2003; Surec, 2003; Olaifa ABSTRACT Industrial effluent containing heavy metals, on entering aquatic environment causes biochemical disturbances in the fish. The present study deals with the toxicity of copper as (CuSO 4 ), as a component of industrial waste and its effect on tissue protein at 24, 48, 72 and 96h. The LC 50 values were found at 180 ppm, 88 ppm, 40 ppm and 20 ppm for 24, 48, 72 and 96h respectively. The estimated protein concentration in the tissues-gills, liver, kidney, ovary and testis were found to be reduced during the exposure periods. Maximum reduction in protein level in the tissues was found at 96h.