Author(s): Samuel Vinod Kumar, Little Flower Pascal, Samuel Tennyson, Muniyasamy Pandeeswari, Kalyanasundaram Dhinamala, Deepa Persis, Rajasingh Raveen, Subramanian Arivoli and Mohamed Meeran

Abstract: Fish provide excellent material for the study of mutagenic or carcinogenic potential of water samples, since they can metabolize, concentrate and store water-borne pollutants. Biomarkers are able to detect oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation which constitute early warning indicators assessable prior to severe alteration in single organism and the community as a whole. Comet assay has critically important applications in the field of toxicology ranging from aging and clinical investigations to genetic toxicology and molecular epidemiology. In the present study, the Indian climbing perch, Anabas testudineus from Buckingham canal, Chennai, Tami Nadu, India was selected for the investigation. In the six tissues (brain, gill, intestine, kidney, liver and muscle) of Anabas testudineus, protein bands ranging from 17 to 250kDa were observed and variable numbers of proteins were visible in each tissue. DNA damage demonstrated that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the experimental fish (9.53 ±2.30) from Buckingham canal and the control fish (0.5 ±0.76), wherein there was approximately double the number of cells with DNA damage, indicating presence of genotoxic agents in the environment. The present study also revealed that, fish can be a potential bioindicator for environmental monitoring.

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