Endocrine disruptors in aquatic environments: evaluating the toxicity of Bisphenol-A and diethyl phthalate.

Two endocrine disruptors (EDCs) commonly found polluting aquatic ecosystems have been analyzed in this study. Bisphenol-A (BPA) is one of the most potent endocrine disruptors used to synthesize poly-carbonate plastic for food and drink packages, as epoxy-resins in metal cans, sports, toys, and medical equipment and consumer electronics; whereas, the other is Phthalate [-diethyl phthalate (DEP)] that is found in cosmetics and personal care products. Euplotes crassus, an interstitial marine ciliate protozoan is a promising bioindicator for evaluating the toxicity of various aquatic environmental communities like sediments, fresh waters and waste waters. Euplotes crassus were used in our study to analyze the effect of BPA and DEP, identifying them as one of the major environmental pollutants in aquatic ecosystems. Our results demonstrate that widespread water contamination with BPA as well as phthalate causes potent cellular damage to this protozoan sentinel. Lethal and sublethal exposures of both these EDCs were found to cause extensive cellular damage affecting cell survival, replication rate, lysosomal membrane stability and endocytosis rate of Euplotes crassus at different doses and time intervals. Although cell death in Euplotes crassus was not that evident when treated with phthalate as opposed to BPA treatment and the protozoans survived at a higher levels of the dose of Phthalate; there was severe cellular and nuclear damage demonstrating that this EDC had a capacity of being more persistent and has a more deleterious effect in terms of biomagnification, indicating long-term harm, not only to the health of aquatic organisms but also to those at higher trophic levels that consume them as food.