Sensitivity of freshwater pulmonate snail Lymnaea luteola L., to silver nanoparticles

• We provide new information about ecotoxicity of silver nanoparticles on freshwater snail Lymnaea luteola.
• Silver nanoparticles induced oxidative stress in freshwater snail Lymnaea luteola.
• We observed that silver nanoparticles induced genotoxicity in freshwater snail Lymnaea luteola.

Toxicity of nanoparticles depends on many factors including size, shape, chemical composition, surface area and surface charge. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are likely to enter the aquatic ecosystems because of their multiple applications and pose a health concern for humans and aquatic species. Therefore, we used a freshwater snail Lymnaea luteola L (L. luteola) to investigate the acute toxicity and genotoxicity of AgNPs in a static-renewal system for 96 h. AgNPs caused molluscicidal activity in L. luteola, with 96-h median lethal concentrations (LC50) (48.10 μg L−1). We have observed that AgNPs (36 μg L−1) elicited a significant (p < 0.01) reduction in glutathione, glutathione-s-transferase and glutathione peroxidase with a concomitant increase in malondialdehyde level and catalase in digestive gland of L. luteola. However, a significant (p < 0.01) induction in DNA damage was observed by the alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis in digestive gland cells treated with AgNPs for 24 and 96 h. These results demonstrate that silver nanoparticles are lethal to freshwater snail L. luteola. The oxidative stress biomarkers and comet assay can successfully be used as sensitive tools of aquatic pollution biomonitoring.