Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Mullus surmuletus from the Catania Gulf (Sicily, Italy): distribution and potential health risks

Abstract

Different specimens of Mullus surmuletus from the Catania Gulf (Sicily) were sampled and analysed for the quantification of 16 priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in order to evaluate the distribution of these pollutants and the potential human health risks associated to the consumption of fish. The determined PAHs concentration values ranged from 0.25 to 6.10 ng/g wet weight and the most abundant PAHs detected were lower molecular weight (LMW) compounds with 2 to 3 rings. Relying on the PAHs concentration values, on the consumption data and on the total toxic equivalent (TEQ), the incremental lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) was assessed and its calculated value (2.97 × 10−7) is far below the “maximum acceptable risk level” (ARL), suggesting a low potential carcinogenic risk on consuming M. surmuletus for local population. Even though the study shows a quite low contamination level in M. surmuletus, intensive monitoring programmes are still highly needed in order to provide a better picture of the PAHs distribution in Catania Gulf and of the human health risk linked to fish consumption.

Meta-Analysis of a New Georeferenced Database on Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Western and Central Mediterranean Seafood

“…Summary statistics on each variable included in the correlation analysis on data from the Adriatic Sea are reported in Table 4. 3 C min -minimum concentration, 4 C max -maximum concentration, 5 Depth min -minimum sampling depth, 6 Depth max -maximum sampling depth, 7 Year min -year of the first sampling campaign, 8 Year max -year of the last sampling campaign, 9 Lat min -minimum latitude of sampling sites, 10 Lat max -maximum of sampling sites.…”

“…As Kendall's rank correlation revealed, after removing the effect of the sampling depth and sampling year, concentrations of LMW-, MMW-and HMW PAHs in Mediterranean mussel caught in the Tyrrhenian Sea increase with latitude in both cold and warm periods, and this increase is statistically significant (p < 0.05) for every PAH class and period of the year, excluding MMW PAHs. 3 C min -minimum concentration, 4 C max -maximum concentration, 5 Depth min -minimum sampling depth, 6 Depth max -maximum sampling depth, 7 Year min -year of the first sampling campaign, 8 Year max -year of the last sampling campaign, 9 Lat min -minimum latitude of sampling sites, 10 Lat max -maximum of sampling sites.…”

“…In particular, HMW PAHs are much less insoluble in water, and so they tend to bind organic particulate matter, being less bioavailable for their uptake from the water. Despite this, they can still be absorbed by aquatic organisms from sediments and particulate matter present in the water column [3,9].…”

“…As already mentioned, physico-chemical properties of PAHs influence their bioavailability, HMW PAHs being less available for uptake from the water, compared to LMW and MMW PAHs. Moreover, in fish, HMW PAHs are readily excreted, thanks to their fast metabolism, whose rate is higher compared to that of lighter PAHs [9,12]. PAHs levels in seafood also depend on the nutritional condition of the organism [13] and on the season [14], likely as an effect of changes in the pollutant environmental inputs [12], seasonal variation of the pollutant elimination rate [15], hydrodynamic processes [16], and/or because of factors pertaining to the reproductive cycle of the species [17].…”

“…Over the years, several studies have investigated the levels of PAHs in seafood caught in the Adriatic [12,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35], Ionian [9,20,34,[36][37][38][39], and Tyrrhenian Seas [7,14,16,17,19,30,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50], with the aims of monitoring the environmental status of particularly impacted areas [39,48], improving the knowledge of factors influencing PAHs levels in marine species [12,35], and, ultimately, informing decisionmakers when it comes to fixing the limits to PAH levels in fishery products [9].…”