The high concentration of
metal toxicants in aquatic ecosystems has a detrimental impact on fish health that ultimately jeopardizes human health. Such threats mostly arise in
mineral-rich areas where an increase in
metal concentrations occurs in aquatic bodies due to anthropogenic activities like mining. The present study assessed the health of food fish Channa punctata from the
mineral-rich areas of Ganjam, Odisha, India, mined for heavy and transition
metal ores like
ilmenite,
zircon,
monazite. The fishes collected from these areas showed histopathological anomalies in vital organs like the liver, kidney, gills, stomach and intestine while cytological analysis revealed vacuolated cytoplasm and micronuclei. Biochemical analysis showed a significantly lower
lipid concentration in muscle (i.e., 0.177 ± 0.177 mg/gm) and liver (i.e., 0.169 ± 0.002 mg/gm) as compared to non-exposed fishes from adjoining non-
mineral rich areas having a mean
protein concentration of 87.48 ± 8.16 and 77.75 ± 0.892 mg/gm tissue in the muscle and liver, respectively, and a mean
lipid concentration of 0.29 ± 0.009 mg/gm muscle and 0.34 ± 0.009 mg/gm liver. Chronic exposure to sublethal concentrations of
zirconium oxychloride, a
salt of
zirconium, resulted in a significant decline in the concentration of
protein, ranging from 57.5 ± 0.929 - 63.88 ± 1.95 mg/gm in muscle and 45.35 ± 2.332 - 51.98 ± 1.036 mg/gm in the liver. The
lipid concentrations in muscle (0.03 ± 0.009 - 0.17 ± 0.009 mg/gm) and liver (0.06 ± 0.012 - 0.19 ± 0.007 mg/gm) were also significantly lower than the non-exposed fishes. Marked degenerative changes were identified in the histological sections of the gill, intestine, stomach, liver and kidney of
zirconium oxychloride-treated fishes along with various nuclear
deformities and micronucleus.