Biomarker for monitoring heavy metal pollution in aquatic environment: An overview toward molecular perspectives
Miftahul Khair Kadim, Yenny Risjani
Abstract
Water pollution is a significant problem in almost all parts of the world. The complexity of anthropogenic activities along the watershed seems to lead the river to function as a giant disposal container. The river is under threat of degradation, mainly due to heavy metal pollution from anthropogenic actions. Heavy metals become harmful if they pollute waters since they are accumulative, toxic, and carcinogenic in water bodies and biota. Various biomarkers to evaluate heavy metal contamination in several aquatic organisms have been widely reported. The use of molecular biomarkers become more popular in the last years and still lead for future prospect. Proteomics and genomics with bioinformatics approaches have been expanded with technological methods through DNA and RNA sequencing and mass spectrometry based proteomics. Therefore, this article aims to review studies using biomarker approaches in many aquatic organisms. This review is expected to reference and encourage future biomarker research, especially for monitoring heavy metal pollution in rivers.