Histopathological study of gill, kidney and liver of Persian Sturgeon (Acipenser persicus Borodin, 1897) and Stellate (Acipenser stellatus Pallas, 1811) exposed to sublethal concentration of un-ionised ammonia UAN.

This study was carried out to investigate the histopathological changes of gill, kidney and liver of Persian Sturgeon and Stellate in response to various sublethal concentration of ammonia. The sublethal doses were determined after a lethal pre-test and then the experiment was done in six treatments with three replicates for both species. In Persian sturgeon, the treatments were including 5, 7, 9.7, 13.2, 18 and 25 mg/l ammonia. In stellate, the concentrations of 5, 6.23, 7.76, 9.66, 12.04 and 15 mg/l ammonia were considered as treatments. Also, one group without ammonia was considered as control for each experiment. The histopathological investigations were done after 96 h exposure. According to our observations, a range of histopathological alternations were found in gill, liver and kidney of both examined fish. The alternations of gill tissue were lamellar necrosis, hyperplasia, lamellar adhesion, haemorrhage, swelling of gill lamellae. Severity of these alternations was dose-dependent and was significantly higher in Persian sturgeon than in stellate. The degree of histopathological alternations of liver did not show a regular pattern between treatments in both species. These alternations were hyperemia, bile record, cell necrosis, cell atrophy, fatty degeneration and cloudy swelling. The signs of kidney alternations intensified with increasing of ammonia concentration in both species. The signs such as hyperemia, vision tissue degeneration, cell necrosis, dilatation of Bowman's space. In conclusion, our results showed that ammonia in concentration of more than 5 mg/l have more adverse impacts on gill, liver and kidney tissues.