Histopathological study on goldfish (Carassius auratus) gonads exposed to tobacco smoke

TL;DR

This study investigates the negative effects of tobacco smoke exposure on goldfish gonads, revealing that increased smoke exposure impairs reproductive tissues and may lead to sterility in both sexes.

Contribution

It provides the first histopathological evidence of tobacco smoke's detrimental impact on goldfish gonadal development and reproductive potential.

Findings

Higher tobacco smoke exposure causes immature oocytes in females.

Increased smoke reduces spermatozoa and increases spermatogonia in males.

Significant differences in sexual maturation stages were observed between groups.

Abstract

Ornamental fish have various positive effects in human life. Due to the effect and importance of aesthetics and artificial reproduction of these fish, which may be enclosed in aquarium environments and come in contact with cigarette smoke, the effects of tobacco smoke on the gonad tissue of goldfish were investigated. For this purpose, 60 goldfish randomly (weight 100gr) divided in 3 groups and were released in tanks containing 10 liters of water (temperature: 20, hardness: 14 ppt, pH: 7/8). After adaptation, in treatment 1, 1gr of tobacco was heated daily with a direct flame, and the resulting smoke was collected and injected into water with an air pump, in treatment 2, this process was done twice a day. After 3 months, fish gonads tissue were sampled and histopathological slides were investigated. The results showed that in the treatment 2, there were early and immature oocytes in the ovarian tissue in comparison to other groups. Also, in the testes of fish of treatment 2, the reduction of spermatozoids and the higher number of spermatogonia were observed. In the treatment 3, these changes were more. A significant difference between the groups in both female and male was observed at the sexual maturation stages (P<0.001). Based on this study, the dissolution of tobacco smoke can have a negative effect on the process of sexual reproduction and fish exposed to more smoke are more likely to be sterile, and these changes were observed in both males and female.