Wastewater from High-Pressure Water Blasting is a Toxic Contaminant Source On Costal Non-target Organisms?

Abstract

Antifouling paint can become discharged by scraping, jet spraying and painting processes, all of which makes them are readily transported into the marine environment where they are referring as a ‘hotspots’ of contamination in coastal area. To define the toxic effects of wastewater from high-pressure water blasting (WHPB) on costal non-target resident organism, we investigate the developmental malformation and transcriptional changes in embryonic flounder. WHPB of Ship A (300 tone) and Ship B (5000 tone) produced a largely overlapping suite of developmental malformation including pericardial edema, spinal curvature and tail fin defect. At 48 hours after exposure, frequency percentage of mortality was found to be 100% in the exposure group with 100 dilution rate for WHPB in Ship A. We used high-throughput sequencing (RNA-seq) to characterize the developmental toxic effects from WHPB exposure. In gene ontology analysis, genes associated with muscle cell differentiation, actin-mediated cell contraction and nervous system development significantly changed (cutoff P<0.01) in embryonic flounder exposed to WHPB in Ship A. Genes associated chromatin remodeling, cell cycle and insulin receptor signaling pathway significantly changed in embryonic flounder exposed to WHPB of Ship B (cutoff P<0.01). The findings here provide a greater understanding for developmental toxicity response of teleost embryos following exposure to WH