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Fish liver damage related to the wastewater treatment plant effluents

Environmental Science and Pollution Research 2023 79 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 65 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Natalija Topić Popović, Lara Čižmek, Sanja Babić, Ivančica Strunjak‐Perović, Rozelindra Čož‐Rakovac

Summary

Researchers reviewed how the complex chemical mixture discharged by wastewater treatment plants damages fish liver structure and function, examining how biotransformation enzymes and antioxidant systems attempt to cope with persistent contaminants and highlighting fish biomarkers used to detect exposure.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) continuously release a complex mixture of municipal, hospital, industrial, and runoff chemicals into the aquatic environment. These contaminants are both legacy contaminants and emerging-concern contaminants, affecting all tissues in a fish body, particularly the liver. The fish liver is the principal detoxifying organ and effects of consistent pollutant exposure can be evident on its cellular and tissue level. The objective of this paper is thus to provide an in-depth analysis of the WWTP contaminants' impact on the fish liver structure, physiology, and metabolism. The paper also gives an overview of the fish liver biotransformation enzymes, antioxidant enzymes, and non-enzymatic antioxidants, their role in metabolizing xenobiotic compounds and coping with oxidative damage. Emphasis has been placed on highlighting the vulnerability of fish to xenobiotic compounds, and on biomonitoring of exposed fish, generally involving observation of biomarkers in caged or native fish. Furthermore, the paper systematically assesses the most common contaminants with the potential to affect fish liver tissue.

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