Author
Listed:
- Ran An
(Department of Chemistry, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA)
- Yadong Li
(Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA)
- Xiaojun Niu
(School of Environmental Science and Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, P. R. China)
- Hongtao Yu
(Department of Chemistry, Jackson State University, Jackson, MS 39217, USA)
Abstract
Liquid crystals (LCs) are typically elongated organic molecules with a non-uniform distribution of electrical charges leading to a dipole. LCs are widely used in displays of computers and other electronic devices. The rapid obsolescence rate of electronics results in large amounts of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) entering the environment. Data on health effects of LCs on living creatures are currently limited to some acute toxicity tests by a few major LC manufacturers. These tests concluded that the vast majority of LCs are not acutely toxic. Since the amount of LCs in electronic devices is very small, the health effects of LCs at low concentrations or doses become important. Catfish were used as the test animals in this study. Four major enzymes of the fish’s antioxidant defense system catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), selenium-dependent glutathione peroxidase (Se-GPx), and glutathione-Stransferase (GST) were chosen as biomarkers to examine effects of LCs, which were taken from obsolete laptop personal computers made in the early 1990s. The catfish were fed with food containing different contents of LCs for 40 days. Activities of the four chosen enzymes in fish livers were assayed. The results showed that there were significant inductions of CAT, SOD, and Se-GPx activities in response to the LC doses. The plots of the enzyme activities versus LC doses suggested an occurrence of oxidative stress when the dose reached about 20 μg LC/g fish·d. It was concluded that LCs can cause pollutant-induced stress to catfish at low doses. CAT, SOD and Se-GPx are effective biomarkers to give early warning on potential health effects of LCs on some aquatic lives including catfish.
Suggested Citation
Ran An & Yadong Li & Xiaojun Niu & Hongtao Yu, 2008.
"Responses of Antioxidant Enzymes in Catfish Exposed to Liquid Crystals from E-Waste,"
IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-5, June.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:5:y:2008:i:2:p:99-103:d:2303
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:5:y:2008:i:2:p:99-103:d:2303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.