Induction of micronuclei in the fish erythrocytes by a water extracts from vanadium-containing waste, which are buried in the territory of the Orel city solid waste dump

The article presents the results of the study of the mutagenicity of components, extracted from lime sludge. This lime sludge is a waste of vanadium pentoxide production. 25,000 tons of the lime sludge were buried in the Orel city landfill of municipal solid waste. According to the calculations, the buried sludge may contain about 920 tons of vanadium pentoxide, which has carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. A water extract was obtained from the sludge, in which zebrafish were placed for 7 days. After this period, blood smears of fish were prepared. The control was blood smears of fish, which were kept in clean water and in a water extract from garden soil. Blood smears from 6 fish were examined in each variant. Seven thousand red blood cells were analyzed in blood smears of each fish. The erythrocyte frequencies with micronuclei were 1.03, 1.32 and 2.23 ‰ in fish that lived, respectively, in clean water, in a soil extract and in a sludge extract. The first two values of micronuclei have no statistically significant differences. The frequency of micronuclei in fish from sludge extracts differs from the control frequency at P≤0.001. The total frequencies of nuclear anomalies in the erythrocytes of fish of the control group and fish living in the aqueous sludge extract are also statistically significant at P≤0.001.