The effects of environmental pollutants such as cadmium chloride and zinc chloride, on the embryological development of the Zebrafish

ABSTRACT The Effects of Environmental Pollutants Such as Cadmium Chloride and Zinc Chloride, on the Embryological Development of the Zcbrafish In this study, Zebrafish embryos in the blastula stage were exposed to various concentrations of zinc chloride and cadmium chloride for 15 days, by applying static renewal procedure. It was observed that both of the chemicals inhibited gastrulation in very high concentrations, and led to edema, vertebra defects and hemorrhage in low concentrations. The LC50 values were determined to be (by using the probit analysis) 1.36 mg/L for zinc chloride, and 0.36 mg/L for cadmium chloride. Zinc chloride in nearly two or three fold higher concentrations than those of cadmium chloride caused similar effects, and this finding led to the conclusion that zinc chloride is less toxic when compared with cadmium chloride. However, zinc chloride was found to be more effective on the hatching time. In general, zinc is known to decrease the probable toxic and carcinogenic effects of cadmium in all species. However, when various concentrations of zinc chloride were applied together with 0.5 mg/L of cadmium chloride, the toxic effects of cadmium chloride in this concentration were observed not to change in the present study. Keywords: Brachydanio rerio, Embryo-larval, Toxisity, Zinc, Cadmium. vn