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Abstract
Metals are serious chemical toxicants that disturb the environmental homogeneity by prolonged
metals above thresh hold level often results in stress which leads to irreversible physiological conditions.
The present investigation was carried out to measure the amount of potential stress that fish species are
facing that thrive in wastewater-fed fishponds (WFFs) in East Calcutta Wetlands (ECWs), using
metallothionein as a biomarker and Oreochromis niloticus as suitable aquatic model. Levels of trace metals
(Cr, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn and Pb) and the respective metallothionein levels along with total protein content were
measured in the liver, gill, muscle and brain of mature, healthy fish specimens, collected from both WFFs
and distantly located freshwater-fed fishponds (FFFs). Water samples from both qualities of fishponds were
analyzed for physico-chemical parameters including estimation of trace metals. The trend for trace metal
distribution in WFFs was Zn > Fe > Mn > Cr > Cu > Pb; and for FFFs it was Fe > Zn > Mn > Cu > Cr >
Pb. The levels of trace metals ranged between 4.690.67 mg L -1 (Zn) 0.320.10 mg L -1 (Pb) in WFFs and
4.580.72 mg L-1 (Fe) 0.120.02 mg L -1 (Pb) in FFFs respectively. The order of concentration of the
metals in fish organs collected from WFFs was as follows: Chromium Liver > Gill > Muscle > Brain;
Manganese- Liver > Gill > Brain> Muscle; Iron- Liver > Gill > Brain> Muscle; Copper- Liver > Gill >
Muscle > Brain; Zinc- Gill > Liver > Muscle > Brain; Lead- Liver > Gill > Muscle > Brain. The order of
concentration of the metals in fish organs collected from FFFs was as follows: Chromium Liver > Gill >
Muscle > Brain; Manganese- Liver > Gill > Brain> Muscle; Iron- Liver > Gill > Brain> Muscle; Copper-
Liver > Muscle > Gill> Brain; Zinc- Gill > Liver > Muscle > Brain; Lead- Brain > Liver > Gill > Muscle.
The highest concentration of trace metal were recorded in livers of fishes collected from both sites
4537.79507.12 mg Kg-1 dw (Fe) and 2748.33228.17 mg Kg-1 dw (Fe) for WFFs and FFFs respectively
whereas the lowest concentration were recorded in brain 0.860.10 mg Kg -1 dw (Zn) for WFFs and in
Muscle 0.170.02 mg Kg-1 dw (Pb) for FFFs respectively. ELISA assay revealed highest metallothionein
concentration in livers 344.7471.94 g g-1 ww and 54.5214.48 g g-1 ww whereas lowest concentrations
were recorded in brains 27.7043.28 g g-1 ww and 1.460.35 g g-1 ww for fishes collected from WFFs
and FFFs respectively. These findings are with well accordance to the previous works where liver, almost
invariably, always found to accumulate more metals and as ambient metal concentrations has been reported
to result in higher expression of metallothionein, it might as well resulted in the present investigation to
record a significantly higher metallothionein concentration in liver. Metallothionein thus acts in a manner to
detoxify the effects of toxic metals and probably maintains the proper metal homeostasis to lessen the