Genotoxicity Assessment of Surface Water with Special Reference to Oil Refinery Effluent: A Review

Contamination of the water bodies occurs from different sources including oil refineries. Oil refinery effluent contains different chemicals at different concentrations including ammonia, sulphides, phenol, hydrocarbons and heavy metals. Monitoring the impact of pollutants on aquatic life forms is challenging due to the differential sensitivities of organisms to a given pollutant, and the inability to assess the long-term effects of persistent pollutants on the ecosystem as they are bio-accumulated at higher trophic levels. A number of tests and system have been developed to investigate the toxicity of refinery waste effluent and other surface water. Many studies indicate that the single cell gel electrophoresis (comet assay), micronucleus, chromosomal aberration and microbial assays are sensitive enough to monitor genotoxic responses of indigenous aquatic organisms to environmental pollution. This article reviews the toxicity in general and genotoxicity as major caused by the exposure of refiner waste effluent to the living system. Mutagenicity/genotoxicity assays should be performed to assess the presence of genotoxicants in the waste water, in addition to the chemical analysis. This review high-lightens the sensitive and reliable tools to measure the mutagenic and genotoxic activities in aquatic environment.