A glyphosate-based herbicide induces histomorphological and protein expression changes in the liver of the female guppy Poecilia reticulata.

Glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) are among the most common herbicides found in aquatic systems, but limited data are available about their mode of action and hepatotoxicity in fish. This study investigated the hepatotoxicity induced by GBH in the guppy Poecilia reticulata using a histopathological assessment associated with a proteomic approach. Guppies were exposed to GBH for 24 h at 1.8 mg of glyphosate L-1, corresponding to 50% of the LC50, 96 h. The results indicate that the GBH at 1.8 mg of glyphosate L-1 induce the development of hepatic damage in P. reticulata, which is exposure-time dependent. The histopathological indexes demonstrate that GBH cause inflammatory, regressive, vascular and progressive disorders in the liver of guppies. Using 2D gel electrophoresis associated with mass spectrometry, 18 proteins that changed by GBH were identified and were related to the cellular structure, motility and transport, energy metabolism and apoptosis. The results show that the acute exposure to GBH causes hepatic histopathological damage related to protein expression profile changes in P. reticulata, indicating that a histopathological assessment associated with a proteomic analysis provides a valuable approach to assess the toxic effects of GBH in sentinel fish species.