Evaluation of Oxidative Stress and Histological Alterations Caused by a Common Laundry Detergent Using the Fresh Water Fish, Channa Punctatus

Detergents are extensively used chemicals at home and in industry, and most of their ingredients are highly toxic to aquatic organisms. The aims of the study is to investigate the effect of a common laundry detergent, Ariel on mitochondrial oxidative stress and histopahtological damage of liver and gill tissues of freshwater fish, Channa Punctatus. The lethal concentration (LC50) of Ariel detergent for 96 hours was 32 ppm. To evaluate the detergent-induced toxicity, the fish were exposed to 1/5th of 96h LC50 concentration (6.4 ppm) for a period of 7 and 14 days. Detergent caused a significant decrease in the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), glutathione reductase (GR), and glutathione (GSH) levels, whereas the activity of xanthine oxidase (XO) and MDA levels increased in both liver and gill tissues after 7 and 14 days exposure to detergent. Histopathology of liver tissue from the treated group showed morphological impairments characterized by loosely arranges, irregularly distributed, and degenerated hepatocytes with increased sinusoidal space and vacuolization, whereas gill tissue showed hyperemia in the afferent and efferent branchial arteries and congestion in the secondary lamellae after 7 and 14 days detergent exposure while secondary lamellae of 14 days exposed group exhibit a tendency of curling and fusion with adjacent lamellae at the terminal part. However, among the groups, 14 days exposed group exhibited significant perturbations in selected oxidative stress markers and histopathological impairments than seven days exposed group; further, the toxic effect of detergent was higher in gill tissue than liver tissue. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that Ariel strongly induces oxidative stress in mitochondria associated with histological alterations in liver and gill tissues suggesting that the deleterious effect caused by the detergent was maybe due to combined effect of the ingredients of Ariel detergent further Ariel-induced pathological impariemnts were found to be dose and time-dependent.