Histomorphological changes in gills and hepatopancreas of crabs: an integrative review

Abstract

Crustaceans are a biological model of ecotoxicology and consequently are widely used to assess the impact of xenobiotics. The toxicity of xenobiotics starts in the interaction of biomolecules and can even cause changes in an entire ecosystem. This paper aims to compile the histomorphological changes caused by xenobiotics in the gills and hepatopancreas of crabs through an integrative review. The literature search was done using PubMed with keywords in English and the filters "full text" and "publications from 2001-21". A total of 299 studies were found and 35 of them were selected based on the title and abstract. Later, 17 were included in the study. There were 18 categories of histomorphological changes in the gills and 22 in the hepatopancreas. We noticed that there is no consensus on the terminology used for histomorphological changes in this group. Furthermore, it was observed that the quality of the histological slides was quite diverse, making the identification and comparison of changes in the images problematic. The aforementioned considerations justify the need for this study to address a gap and encourage future research to develop a guide of histomorphological changes in crabs and its use as a tool for environmental biomonitoring.