Efeitos da exposição ao glifosato em concentrações ambientalmente relevantes sobre biomarcadores morfológicos, neurotóxicos e de mutagenicidade em filhotes de Tartaruga-da-Amazônia

Abstract

Brazil is one of the countries that uses the most pesticides due to its wide variety of agricultural production. In the state of Amazonas, with the population growth and high demand for food, many of these pesticides were used in the region in order to increase local productivity to supply the trade. One of the most widely used pesticides in the region is glyphosate, a broad-spectrum herbicide used to combat weeds in plantations. The effects of these pesticides often end up affecting non-target species, due to contamination in aquatic environments caused by surface runoff from plantations. In this sense, this study aimed to evaluate the cytotoxic, mutagenic, hepatotoxic, nephrotoxic and biochemical effects that the pesticide glyphosate, in environmentally relevant concentrations of 32 µg/L and 65 µg/L, exerts on hatchlings of the Amazon turtle, Podocnemis expansa. The concentration defined as safe by CONAMA was capable of inducing histopathological damage in the liver tissue of P. expansa, but was not sufficient to cause changes in the frequency of mininuclei, Erythrocytic Nuclear Anomalies (ENAs), kidney histopathology or alter acetylcholinesterase activity. Our results indicate that glyphosate is capable of causing damage to the liver histopathology of Amazon turtle hatchlings at environmentally relevant concentrations.