Wastewaters of meat-processing enterprise: assessment of genotoxic potential

Abstract

Environmental pollution and ecosystem dysfunction are one of the most important problems of the today’s world. Assessment of toxigenic properties of effluents from the meat-processing enterprise was carried out using the short-term microorganisms biotests in vitro. Both native waste water and its ether and water fractions were investigated. The probes’ sterilization was carried out by filtration through the sterile membrane filters Synpor with pores diameter of 0.45 m. Mutagenic activity of wastewaters was determined using the Salmonella/microsomes plate with in vitro metabolic activation and without metabolic activation (Ames test). As a metobolic activation the rat liver microsomes were used. Studying of the DNA-damaging activity was carried out using the suspension method modification on the mutant Escherichia coli strains, in which the functioning of one reparation systems is suppressed: uvrA-, recAand рol A-. Native waste water doesn’t have an influence on the mutant strains recAand рol A-, its survivability degree is in the range 96-100%. However, DNA-damaging action was registered for the strain with the damaged excision repair (uvrA-), survivability of which was 81.31%. Ames test of wastewater and its fractions didn’t reveal any mutagenic activity. The tests used in this work allow one to comprehensively estimate the genetic danger of the enterprise wastewaters within a short time and are recommended as test-systems for monitoring the ecological safety of wastewaters.