Interspecies Peculiarities of Biomarkers Response of Marine Fish Embryos to Oil Pollution

Shelf areas of the seas and oceans characterizing high productivity are the spawning sites of many aquatic organisms. However, they are strong impacted for anthropo-genic pollution, including oil contamination, which negatively influence on marine organisms. The effects of mazut and diesel fuel in the concentrations of 0.05, 0.1 and 0.2 ml/l on the activity of antioxidant enzymes which are recognized as biomarkers of the oxidative stress namely superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), peroxidase (PER) and glutathione reductase (GR) in the developing embryos of two marine blen-nies Parablennius sanguinolentus and Salaria pavo (Perciformes: Blenniidae) on the V -VI developmental stages were studied. The results demonstrated higher mazut tox-icity as compared with diesel fuel. In P. sanguinolentus embryos exposed to mazut the activity of key anti-oxidant enzymes SOD and CAT were significantly higher (+413% and +100% as compared with the control, p<0.05), while in the case of diesel fuel the enzymes level varied insignificantly. In the embryos of S. pavo SOD and CAT activities were also increased at mazut incubation (256% and 103% respectively, p<0.05), while the differences between enzymes level in embryos exposed to diesel fuel were lower. In contaminated S. pavo embryos enzyme activities varied less as compared with the embryos of P. sanguinolentus, therefore they are more resistant and adaptive to oil contamination. The possible mechanisms of fish embryos antioxidant system response to oil pollution are discussed.