In this study, we investigated the various effects of co-exposure
to atrazine and arsenic using the zebrafish, Danio rerio as a model
organism. The use of D. rerio in toxicological studies is becoming more
popular in recent times for various reasons; they offer the possibility
to perform small-scale, high-throughput analyses and their use is not
regulated by current legislations on animal welfare (Scholz et al.,
2008;Weigt et al., 2011). While there have been studies with fish that
have looked at the toxic effects of atrazine or arsenic individually, to
the best of our understanding not much has been done to investigate
the effects of co-exposure to both arsenic and atrazine in fish,
notwithstanding that both contaminants are readily common in aquatic
environments. Thus, the aims of the present study were to investigate
the toxicity of atrazine and arsenic, both individually and together,
using both embryotoxicity indices (mortality and malformation) and
various sublethal endpoints that are indicative of oxidative stress and
genotoxicity.