Abstract
Extensive production and use of organophosphate pesticide in agriculture, has risen concerned about its ecotoxicity and risk assessment of insecticides, which are more important. Therefore, the present investigation was aimed to study the induction of oxidative stress and DNA damage by organophosphate insecticide profenofos (PFF) in freshwater snail
Lymnea luteola
(
L. luteola
). The median lethal value (96 h LC
50
) of PFF was estimated as 1.26 mg/L for L. luteola in a semi-static system and on the basis of LC
50
value three concentrations viz., 0.126 (1/10 of LC
50
, Sublethal I), 0.63 (1/2 of LC
50
, Sublethal II) and 0.84 mg/L (2/3 of LC
50
, Sublethal III) were determined. Snails were exposed to above-mentioned concentrations of PFF along with solvent control (acetone) and negative control for 96 h. The haemolymph was collected at 24 and 96 h of after treatment. In heamolymph of PFF exposed snail, lipid peroxide, glutathione reduced glutathione S transferase and superoxide dismutase activities at the tested concentrations significantly differ from those in the control. The genotoxicity induced in hemocytes of treated snails was measured by alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis assay. The data of this experiment demonstrated significantly enhancement of oxidative stress and DNA damage in the treated snails as compared to controls. Also, we observed statistically significant correlations of ROS with DNA damage (% tail DNA) (
R
2
= 0.9708) for 24 h and DNA damage (R2 = 0.9665) for 96 h.
Results of the current experiment can be useful in risk evaluation of PFF among aquatic organisms. The study confirmed the use of comet assay for in vivo laboratory experiments using freshwater snail for selecting the toxic potential of industrial chemicals and environmental contaminants.