Chemical Pollutants In Environmental Research

In recent years, Marine pollution has become a global concern. The marine environments are affected by either point or non point source pollution. Chemicals such as oil-based products, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, accidental oil spills, runoff from coastal areas and plastic materials (Haynes et al., 2000; Wiese and Ryan, 2003; Rios et al., 2007; Lionetto and Maffezzoli, 2008; Lionetto and Frigione, 2009; Prouty et al., 2010 ) all impact marine environments. For the last three decades, the industrial and human activities in the coastal area of Saudi Arabia have dramatically increased and resulted in the continuous invasion of different types of pollutants including heavy metals, and also, from four oil refineries located

This does not reveal the impact of chemical pollution on the aquatic environment because of potential synergistic/antagonistic effects of complex mixtures of chemical pollutants. It represents a major challenge in current eco-toxicological research by identifying a suitable biomarker of toxicity. (Cheung et al., 2007). Many parameters have been investigated to assess disturbances of various physiological functions linked to chemical exposure (Van der Oost et al., 2003). The role of antioxidant systems is to protect the cells from this oxidative stress through , measuring the components of the antioxidant defense system to determine the exposure of organism to pollutant (Bilbao et al., 2010). Thus, utilization of biomarkers as an early warning of pollution or degradation in ecosystems has increased over the past 20 years (Adams,

biomarkers of exposure and response, or general and specific biomarkers (De Lafontaine et al., 2000). Antioxidant enzymes such as Catalase (CAT), reduced Glutathione (GSH) and Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) could be useful as biomarkers reflecting not only exposure to contaminants, but also their toxicity (Mosleh et al., 2007) especially when the body is exposed to pollutants that generate oxidative stress. The AChE activity has been used as a biomarker of exposure to several chemicals such as organophosphate and carbamate insecticides in aquatic environments (Oliveira et al., 2007). Elevated concentrations of MDA are an expression of lipid peroxidation (Sunderman,