Micronuclei monitoring of fishes from Lake Paranoa, under influence of sewage treatment plant discharges

Fish micronuclei tests (MN) were used to evaluate the ability of wastewater from two municipal sewage treatment plants that empty into Lake Paranoa to cause genetic damage. There were no significant differences in the frequencies of micronuclei between the control and hypertrophic areas. In contrast, cyclophosphamide and mitomycin C, used to test the sensitivity of the biological assay, significantly increased the micronuclei counts in Tilapia rendalli, Oreochromis niloticus and Cyprinus carpio, T. rendalli was the most sensitive specie to both clastogens and C carpio, the most resistant. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.