475| Biolife | 2014 | Vol 2 | Issue 2 B I O L I F E R E S E A R C H A R T I C L E EFFECT OF PHENTHOATE ON PROTEIN LEVELS OF FRESHWATER FISH LABEO ROHITA (HAMILTON) Somaiah, K 1 , Sunita, K 2 * and Nagaraju, B 3 1 Department of Environmental Sciences, 2 Department of Zoology & Aquaculture, 3 Department of Biochemistry, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur-522510, Andhra Pradesh, India. E-mail: drsunitamichael@gmail.com ABSTRACT The organophosphorus pesticide Phenthoate has been widely used in agriculture for several crops such as paddy, cotton and vegetables to control serious insects and mites in many areas of India. These chemicals cause severe damage to aquatic ecosystem especially to fishes. The main aim and objective of present study is to evaluate the impact on proteins metabolism in fingerlings of Labeo rohita an economically important Indian major carp. The lethal concentration was found to be 2.1mg/l under laboratory condition and 1/10 th of lethal concentration for 96hrs LC 50 value is considered as sub lethal concentration. The exposure of fish to sub lethal concentration for 1, 4 and 8 days and investigated significant changes in the vital organs by following standard protocols. The results shows that the percentage of proteins degradation was minimum (7.62%) in gut and maximum percentage (11.76%) in liver for 1day, minimum reduction was (8.04 %) in brain and maximum was (13.64%) in liver for 4 days, minimum percentage depletion (8.36 %) in gill and maximum was (22.46%) in liver for 8 days compared to control. The total protein content levels rapidly induced might be due to the pesticide pollution and inhibition of metabolizing enzymes by toxicity. It is concluded that Phenthoate concentrations (low and high) is very toxic and causes alterations in vital organs of fish L. rohita. Key words : Toxicity, protein levels, sub lethal concentration . INTRODUCTION Water pollution is usually caused by various human sources, typically (point and nonpoint) industrial facilities and agrochemicals especially in aquatic ecosystem, has become a serious environmental problem now a days. These agrochemicals and industrial discharges may carried away effectively by rains, winds, rivers and floods into the large water bodies and change their physico-chemical properties with high toxicity. The water contamination cause damages to aquatic life especially to fishes which are very sensitive to wide range of toxicant in the water (Herger et al., 1995). Different species of fish show active uptake and accumulation of many toxicants such as herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls from water bodies. Among all these agrochemicals, pesticides found to be extremely toxic to organisms and also to the food chain of aquatic ecosystems. The accumulation of pesticides produces some physiological, biochemical and as well as morphological responses in the freshwater fauna by influencing several activities of metabolites and enzymes reported by Ramamurthy et al. (1987). AN INTERNATIONAL QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF BIOLOGY & LIFE SCIENCES 2(2):475-479 ISSN (online): 2320-4257 www.biolifejournals.com