Effect of paper industry leachate on various serological indices and serum proteins

Background & Aims:

Pulp and paper industry consumes more resources as compared to any other industry around the globe. The toxicity of waste water (leachate) resulting from paper processing has become a serious issue now a days. So, current research was aimed to assess various toxic aspects of pulp and paper industry waste water.

Methods/Study design:

Study design involved the division of Wistar rats (n = 5) of about 245 ± 5 g in three groups viz, Control group (4 ml/kg normal saline), Group 1 (4 ml/kg leachate) and Group 2 (4 ml/kg 1:10 diluted leachate). All the animals received the treatment through intraperitoneal injection. After 24h of the injection, all the animals were sacrificed and blood was collected, sera were separated and processed for further analysis.

Results:

Serological analysis revealed that leachate induction leads to significant positive variations in level of serum aspartate aminotransferases (AST) (P < 0.0001), cholesterol (P < 0.0001) and High density lipoproteins (HDL) (P < 0.0001) while a significant negative change in triglycerides (P = 0.0002) and creatinine (P = 0.0370) level in both experimental groups. Alanine aminotransferases (ALT) level showed a significant increment in Group 1 and a decrement in Group 2 compared to control group (P < 0.0001). SDS page analysis revealed an overall decreased expression of various proteins in both experimental groups. The protein fractions of 317, 212, 178, 134, 89, 74 and 68 KDa were found in Group 1 compared to control (331, 215, 180, 139, 112, 91, 75 and 69 KDa). However, protein fraction of 202, 171, 136 and 91 KDa were present in Group 2 compared to control.

Conclusion:

These findings confirmed that paper industry leachate is extremely noxious and induce alterations in various serological parameters and also interfere with the expression of proteins.

Corresponding author: Sheikh, Nadeem

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