AN ANTHOLOGY OF CYTOGENETIC END POINTS LIKE MICRONUCLEUS TEST, COMET ASSAY AND CHROMOSOMAL ABERRATION ASSAY IN PISCES

Abstract

Growing awareness for chemicals with potential hazards has stimulated significant interest to use fishes as indicators for mutagens, carcinogens and teratogens in aquatic ecosystem as they take higher place in the food chain forming significant source of food and nutrition for human affecting health directly. They are generally considered as best animal model for studies with advantages of monitoring genotoxicity owing to their ability to metabolize xenobiotics and accumulate pollutants. This has led to develop several biological tests to detect and identify such effects through various cytogenetic endpoints which are very sensitive genetic assays to detect environmental mutagens at sub-toxic levels. Micronuclei tests (MN), comet assay and chromosomal aberrations test (CA) in fishes were reported as useful biomarker of in vivo techniques from time to time with potential for in situ monitoring of water quality. This article aims to present an anthology of such studies in piscine models to realize their significance in environmental mutagenesis.