EFFECT OF ACTIVITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS ON THE ANTIOXIDANT DEFENCES OF VARIOUS AIR-BREATHING TELEOST FISHES

The determination of heavy metal-induced changes in the physiology and survival of aquatic organisms is complicated because such changes differ from metal to metal, species to species and from one experimental condition to another. The findings of the present study substantiate earlier findings that antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT) and lipid peroxidation in fish can be effectively used as biomarkers of copper toxicity. The present study also emphasizes that fish can serve as valuable bioindicators and can serve as useful alternative models for understanding oxidative stress. Piscine systems have several advantages for studying oxidative stress, such as the reducing/avoiding the number of mammals used in the research, cost-effectiveness and the ability to enhance the power of the experiment by increasing the number of organisms per study. Experiments could be designed using transgenic fish to perform knockout experiments and evaluate how oxidative stress may influence gene expression in piscine models. We conclude that piscine models can also be used to study oxidative stress and to evaluate environmental issues from both a human health and ecological perspective.