A comparative genotoxicity study of agrochemicals: nuclear abnormalities, comet assay, and gene expression alterations.

Agrochemicals (AGs) are known for their ability to have a negative impact on the health of non-target species, despite the fact that they are meant to protect agricultural plants from harmful pests. Catla catla (Hamilton, 1822) gill cells (ICG) were exposed to four AGs: insecticide (Imidacloprid (IMI)), fungicide (Curzate (CZ)), herbicide (pyrazosulfuron ethyl (PE)), and fertilizer micronutrients (MN) with sublethal concentrations 1/20th, 1/10th, and 1/5th of IC₅₀, described here as low dose (LD), medium dose (MD), and high dose (HD), respectively. A significant dose-dependent increase in the nuclear abnormalities such as micronuclei formation, bi-nucleated, and lobbed nucleated cells was observed in ICG cells treated with AGs. Of all the AGs, maximum alterations were observed with the HD of IMI followed by CZ, PE, and MN. Concurrently, the genotoxicity was determined by performing comet assays with high dose of all AGs. The gene expression of dnmt and cyp p450 were also studied through q-PCR in ICG cells. The significant increase in expression as well as alteration in cyp p450 and dnmt sequence was reported in ICG cells exposed to HD of IMI. This suggests that IMI has a genotoxic effect and may lead to epigenetic alterations.