Haematological and biochemical parameters and tissue accumulations of cadmium in Oreochromis niloticus exposed to various concentrations of cadmium chloride
Allam, Nasser A. Al-Asgah a, Abdel-Wahab A. Abdel-Warith a,b,*, El-Sayed M. Younis a, Hassan Y. . 2015
Oreochromis niloticus, weighing 36.45± 1.12 g were exposed to 10%, 20% and 30% of
the LC50 of CdCl2 which represents treatments (T1)1.68, (T2)3.36 and (T3)5.03 mg/l, respectively,
for a period of 10, 20 and 30 days. It was found that, compared to a control group reading of
0.19 ± 0.03 lg/g dry weight, accumulation of Cd in the gills was significantly (p< 0.05) increased
in samples ranging between 7.64 ± 0.86 and 61.73 ± 0.82 lg/g dry weight from T1 at 10 days to T3
at 30 days. The accumulation of Cd in the liver, meanwhile, was also observed to significantly
increase (p<0.05) with increasing time and concentrations with results ranging between
3.21 ± 0.12 and 181.61± 1.32 compared to the control group results of 0.29 ±0.04 lg/g dry
weight. Although muscles exhibited lower levels of accumulation than the gills and liver they still
showed the same pattern of increase compared to the control group, with a significant difference
ranging between 0.32 ±0.02 and 2.16 ± 0.08 compared to the control group results of
0.03 ± 0.001 lg/g dry weight. Also, haematological parameters such as red blood cells (RBCs), haemoglobin
(Hb) and haematocrit (Hct) were reduced in fish exposed to Cd at all periods, with significant
differences (p< 0.05). Plasma glucose concentration showed a significant increase. Total
protein levels of fish showed a significant reduction (p> 0.05) for all exposed treatments. Also,
