Fish Toxicity Assessment

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Toxicity Assessment of the Puffer fish Takifugu oblongus from Chennai Coast Sreedevi N, Monalisa Barik, and S. S. Khora* Medical Biotechnology Division, School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT university, Vellore-632014, Tamil Nadu, India Corresponding author: sskhora@vit.ac.in ABSTRACT: Puffer fishes are generally believed to be the second-most poisonous vertebrates in the world, after the golden poison frog. Certain internal organs, such as liver, and sometimes the skin, contain tetrodotoxin and are highly toxic to most animals when eaten, nevertheless, the meat of some species is considered a delicacy in Japan. The toxin can enter the body by ingestion, injection, inhalation and through abraded skin. The mechanism of toxicity…show more content…
Toxicity is due to a toxin called Tetrodotoxin, which causes food intoxication after consumption due to ingestion of flesh. This neurotoxin is found primarily in the ovaries and liver, although smaller amounts exist in the intestines and skin, as well as trace amounts in muscle. TTX is extremely toxic. Tetrodotoxin of the puffer fishes is a specific and powerful sodium-channel blocker. This toxic agent is reversibly inhibited by the voltage-activated sodium channels, which induces paralytic symptoms and causes respiratory insufficiency. These are observed to be highly neurotoxic. Our study mainly focuses on toxicity assessment of few parts of the puffer fishes especially liver, skin, and gonads/ovaries. This particular specimen Takifugu oblongus, which was collected from the Royapuram Fishing Harbour located in Chennai, India. Toxicity assessment was experimentally performed on swiss albino mouse. The puffer fishes i.e. samples were dissected and organs like liver, skin, gonads/ovaries were taken out separately for…show more content…
About 25 mL of molten Mueller Hinton Agar was poured into a sterile Petri plate (Himedia, Mumbai, India). The plates were allowed to solidify, after the organisms, which were grown for 18 h (OD adjusted 0.6), 100 µl of above said pathogenic bacteria cultures were transferred onto plate and culture lawn was made by using sterile L-rod spreader. After five minutes setting of the bacteria, the wells were made using sterile 5 mm cork borer and test samples were dissolved in sterile water at various concentrations (i.e. 25, 50, 75 and 100 µl/well). The sterile water served as control. The plates were incubated at 37°C in a 40 W florescent light source (~ 400 nm) for 24 h. The antibacterial activity was determined by measuring the diameter of the zone of inhibition around the well using antibiotic zone scale (Himedia, Mumbai,

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