Bile Pah-Metabolite Concentrations In Perch (Perca Fluviatilis) Exposed To Crude Oil And Sampled In The Gulf Of Finland Near An Oil Refinery And In Baltic Salmon (Salmo Salar)

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Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are environmental contaminants that are released into the marine environment through oil spills, domestic heating, traffic and power plants. Fish exposed to PAHs show only trace amounts of these compounds in their tissues. Instead, PAHs are readily transformed into more hydrophilic metabolites, which are excreted through bile. Thus fish bile PAH-metabolites can be used as a biomarker of exposure of fish to PAHs in the field. For background knowledge perch were exposed in laboratory to two concentrations (0.5 and 2.5 mg per litre) of Russian crude oil for one and three weeks and sampled thereafter. In addition, perch were sampled near an oil refinery and at a reference site in the Gulf of Finland, and salmon were sampled in four areas of the Baltic Sea. PAH-metabolites in bile were analysed by a HPLC method with fluorescent detection. Four PAH-metabolites were detected in bile of exposed perch and the concentrations of these increased dose-dependently and according to the exposure time. In the field-sampled perch and salmon only 1-OH-pyrene, which was the dominating metabolite in bile of oil-exposed perch, was detected. In the field samples its concentration was about one third of that of perch exposed for one week and one tenth of that in three-week exposure. In perch the concentration of 1-OH-pyrene was higher near the oil refinery than in the reference area, and in salmon at the order of magnitude of the field-sampled perch varying according to the supposed pollution state of the sampling area in the Baltic Sea.