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Toxic Effects Of Copper, Cadmium, And Methoxychlor Shown By Neutral Red Retention Assay In Two Species Of Freshwater Molluscs, Nikolett Molnar, Peter Fong

Biology Faculty Publications

We used neutral red retention assay in lysosomes of digestive gland cells as an indicator for stress effects by the environmental contaminants Cu, Cd, and the pesticide methoxychlor in two freshwater molluscs, the unionid mussel, Elliptio complanata (Lightfoot) and the ramshorn snail Helisoma trivolvis (Say). Mussels and snails were exposed for 7 and 14 days to Cu and Cd each at nominal concentrations of 2.5 μg/L, 5.0 μg/L, and 10.0 μg/L, and to methoxychlor concentrations of 1.0 μg/L, 10.0μg/L, and 100.0 μg/L. Both mussels and snails exposed to Cu showed a significant increase in the percent of destabilized lysosomes compared …