Environmental fate of the anti-parasitic ivermectin in an aquatic micro-ecological system after a single oral administration

Di Wang; Bing Han; Shaowu Li; Yongsheng Cao; Xue Du; Tongyan Lu

doi:10.7717/peerj.7805

Environmental fate of the anti-parasitic ivermectin in an aquatic micro-ecological system after a single oral administration

PeerJ. 2019 Oct 9:7:e7805. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7805. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Di Wang¹, Bing Han², Shaowu Li¹, Yongsheng Cao¹, Xue Du¹, Tongyan Lu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Fish Diseases, Heilongjiang River Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Harbin/Heilongjiang, China.
² Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Southeast University, Nanjing/Jiangsu, China.

Abstract

Background: Ivermectin (IVM) has been widely used in the aquaculture industry since its efficacy against parasites. However, the degradation of IVM was very slow in aquatic environments and the environmental fate of IVM in a complete aquatic system was still not clear. Therefore, comparable studies in a complete aquatic system were merited and helped to elucidate the environmental fate and effects of IVM.

Methods: An aquatic micro-ecological system containing an aquatic environment (water and sediment) and aquatic organisms (invertebrates, aquatic plants and fish) was built to simulate the natural rearing conditions. A single dose of 0.3 mg kg^-1 body weight of IVM was given to the fish by oral gavage. Water, sediment, the roots and leaves of the aquatic plants, the soft tissue of the invertebrates and the visceral mass and muscle of fish samples were collected at 0.5 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 15 days, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days and 70 days after the treatment. IVM concentration in each sample was determined using ELISA method.

Results: IVM was quickly and widely distributed into the whole aquatic system in one day, and then was highly accumulated in organisms resulting in long-term residues. IVM was exchanged multiple times between the different media, which caused continuous fluctuations in the concentration of IVM in the water and sediment. It was worth noting that there was a second peak value of IVM in the fish and invertebrates after 30 days. The environmental fate of the IVM in the aquatic micro-ecological system showed that the drug was transferred from the fish to aquatic plants in the first seven days, and then gathered in the water and sediment, finally accumulating in the invertebrates. Our results indicated that an effective aquatic micro-ecological system was successfully established, and it could be applied to the study the environmental fate of IVM, which will aid the scientific use of this anti-parasitic agent during aquaculture.

Keywords: Aquatic micro-ecological system; Environmental fate; Ivermectin.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, HRFRI (NO. HSY201705M), the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (Grant No. 201203085) and the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, CAFS (NO. 2017HY-ZD1009). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.