Histopathology to assess the health status of wild fish downstream from pharmaceutical manufacture discharges
Résumé
Pharmaceutical Active Ingredients (APIs) are frequently detected in surface waters at levels from 1ng/l up to a few µg/l. Several sources of APIs are indentified including effluents from pharmaceutical factories that contain high concentrations of various APIs and are able to disturb the health of aquatic organisms. The aim of present work was to assess adverse effects induced by pharmaceutical factory discharges in wild fish. For this purpose, a multi-organ histopathological approach was performed in liver, gonads, gill, kidney and spleen of fish collected upstream and downstream from four pharmaceutical manufactures. Preliminary results indicated a high level of intersex in gudgeons living downstream from steroid synthesis manufacture that could support disturbance of reproductive function associated to population effects. To complete, these fish exhibited also a set of changes in gill ultra-structure such as epithelial lifting and necrosis, secondary lamellae fusions, erythrocytes stases and mucous cells proliferation that could induce disruption of iono and osmoregulation process. Necrosis was also observed in kidney. Results of histological analysis performed in other investigated sites will be presented here and relationship with industrial production and individual or population adverse effects will be discussed. These first results confirm that chemicals contained in industrial effluents can induce histological adverse effects in wild fish from receiving area. Moreover, this work argues for the implementation of monitoring programs using effect-based monitoring tools such as histopathological approaches.