Abstract
Chemicals discharged into the environment may be taken up by aquatic organisms and elicit biological responses that can be used as biomarkers of exposure and/or effect. Depending on the site of action, they may be classified as neurotoxic, hepatotoxic, genotoxic, or hemato-immunotoxic biomarkers. Multiple molecular biomarker analysis can furnish a more precise diagnostic of effects induced by different classes of chemicals and provide a sensitive, physiologically based method of determining the presence of a contaminant and its bioavailability to aquatic organisms. This article addresses toxicity, mechanism of adaptation, as well as toxic damage induced by chemical exposure.
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