Evaluation of sensitivity and specificity of two crustacean biochemical biomarkers

Biochemical biomarkers are increasingly used for environmental assessment. Although the emphasis has been on vertebrate biomarkers, invertebrates biomarkers have been developed as well. This study evaluated the usefulness of biomarker responses of freshwater invertebrates by comparing the sensitivity and specificity of endpoints at three levels of biological organization: biochemical, physiological, and individual. The study focused on the epibenthic amphipod Gammarus pulex L., and the end points were cholinesterase (ChE) and glutathione-S-transferase (GST) activity, feeding inhibition, and mortality. Chemicals representing Five major classes of toxic chemicals were assessed, including zinc, linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS; surfactant), lindane (organochlorine), pirimiphos-methyl (organophosphorus), and permethrin (pyrethroid). Lethality was the least sensitive endpoint, with 96-h LC50 values ranging from 2.78 mu g/L for permethrin to 6.31 mg/L for LAS. Comparison of the biochemical biomarkers and the sublethal feeding rate assay indicated that whereas ChE inhibition was a specific indicator of organophosphate exposure, the biochemical assay was more than 13-fold less sensitive than the feeding rate assay. The GST biomarker performed with greater sensitivity but with lower specificity compared with the ChE biomarker. However, only on exposure to lindane did the GST biomarker marginally outperform the feeding rate assay in terms of sensitivity. Feeding inhibition is both a general and a sensitive (LC50, <3%) indicator for exposure to a range of chemicals. The Gammarus sp. ChE biomarker may have utility in providing a diagnostic and rapid indicator of organophosphate exposure, but evidence from this and other studies questions the sensitivity of this biomarker in predicting sublethal, higher-order effects. The GST biomarker may provide a rapid and sensitive indicator for toxicant exposure, hut it has limited use as a diagnostic tool and provides only limited improvement in sensitivity over more ecologically relevant sublethal end points (e.g., feeding rate, growth rate).