Acetaminophen is a ubiquitous environmental pollutant, owing to its incomplete removal from wastewater treatment plants and indiscriminate direct discharges into the environment, especially in low-income countries. Recent research advances on aquatic bodies have shown that at low concentrations, acetaminophen is oligomerized to predominantly dimers, and trimers, in a manner aided by elevated temperatures. The impact of dimers accumulation, owing to the pseudo persistence of acetaminophen in the environment, especially in the tropical parts of the world is largely unknown. It has been presumed oligomers may be biologically inactive with paucity of experimental evidence, thus creating a knowledge gap. The present study is meant to ascertain if acetaminophen dimers could elicit any potential toxicity on zebrafish (<i>Danio rerio</i>) embryo, which were used as an experimental animal model. Egg water was used as the control while acetaminophen monomer was used as the reference point. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to graded concentrations of both compounds. Following hatching, head and yolk length, Eye, head, and pericardial area were measured at 72 hr post fertilization, following established methodologies. Observed morphological toxicity on zebrafish embryo were dose dependent. About 75% of embryo exposed to 4 mM dimer had yolk deformity compared to less than 10% for the monomer. Embryos exposed to 4 mM dimer did not hatch at 72 hours following fertilization, compared to 90% hatch rate for the monomers. The dimers however did not exhibit any obvious effect on the head area, eye area and head to yolk length, while the monomer did. Higher pericardial area was observed for the monomer but not in the dimer-treated embryos. Based on these results, it is concluded Acetaminophen dimers significantly affected eggs hatchability but did not substantially hinder the increase in size of the head and eyes. Thus, further studies need to be carried out to understand the interaction of the dimer with the test organism.

Toxicity of acetaminophen dimer on zebrafish embryo

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