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The toxic effects of water soluble fraction (WSF) of crude oil on the gills of juvenile kutum roach, Rutilus frisii kutum, were investigated. The juvenile (1-2g) kutum roach were collected in summer 2008 from the Kolmeh Hatchery Center, Golestan province, and acclimatized to laboratory conditions through keeping them in a 300 liter tank with dechlorinated water for a minimum of 8 days. Six different types of WSF concentrations were made to obtain LC5096h including 27, 29.25, 31.5, 33.75, 36 and 38.25ppm. Then, 10 fingerlings of R. frisii kutum were exposed to the WSF concentrations, for 96 hours. Considering mortality rate of the juveniles in 96 hours and using Probit value statistical analysis, LC5096h was obtained at 33.95ppm. Two different concentrations (0.1 LC50 and LC50) of WSF were prepared for further assessments and after 24 and 96h of exposure, 3 individual fish were collected from each aquarium for histopathological studies. The gill sections with 3 micron thickness were prepared, stained using H & E, and examined by light microscope. General damages after observation included: Epithelial lifting, congestion in filament and lamellae, clubbing, fusion, hypertrophy of epithelial cells of lamellae, different levels of hyperplasia between lamella and aneurysms. Pathological studies showed that the WSF of crude oil causes serious damage in gills of juvenile R. frisii kutum, leads to malfunction of this organ which will harm homeostasis of the fish. Corresponding author

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Sponges are the most primitive multicellular eukaryotic organisms and sessile without defense organs therefore, they produce different secondary metabolites to protect themselves from predators and pathogens in their environment. This study aims to evaluation of cytotoxic properties of hexane and dichloromethane parts of methanol extract of the sponge (Ircinia mutans), collected from Larak Island. Hexane and dichloromethane parts were extracted by liquid-liquid extraction from methanol extract then tested by MTT colorimetric assay on three cancer cell lines MOLT-4, MCF-7 and HT-29. The hexane part with IC₅₀ value 11.53 ± 1.3, 41.64 ± 3.5 and 14.57 ± 1.5 μg/mL, and the dichloromethane part with IC₅₀ value 12.51 ± 0.8, 26.6 ± 2.2 and 7.47 ± 0.97 μg/mL respectively, on three mentioned cell line showed moderate to strong cytotoxic activity on all three cancer cell lines. The results also indicate that the dichloromethane part has stronger cytotoxic activity than the hexane part. This study's findings showed the potential of Persian Gulf sponges as valuable sources of new anti-cancer compounds.

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In the present study, the effects of the different levels soybean meal replacement with sesame oil-cake in rainbow trout diet on growth performance, body biochemical composition and liver enzymes were evaluated. An 8-week feeding period were performed by Four experimental diets with different levels of sesame oil-cake 0% (S0), 5% (S5), 10% (S10) and 15% (S15), respectively, in a completely randomized design in triplicate. Growth and nutrition indices including final weight (FW), specific growth rate (SGR), weight gain (WG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), lipid efficiency rate (LER) and feed intake (FI) did not show significant differences between different treatments (p<0.05). However, there was a significant difference between S10 (0.23) and S15 (0.21) treatments in protein efficiency rate (PER). In contrast, hepato somatic index (HSI), visceral somatic index (VSI) and condition factor (CF), showed significant difference (p<0.05) between experimental treatments, so that most of them were related to the treatments (S10= 1.07), (S10= 6.29) and (S15= 1.05, respectively, and the lowest of them were observed in the treatments (S15= 0.98), (S15= 5.78) and (S0= 1.02), respectively. There was a significant difference in fillet protein, lipid and moisture (p<0.05) but the amount of ash did not show any significant difference. In addition, the activity of alanine amino transferase and aspartate amino transferase showed a significant decrease with increasing sesame meal and conversely, the activity level of alkaline phosphatase increased significantly with increasing replacement level (p<0.05). According to the results, it can be stated that not only the use of sesame meal instead of soybean meal up to 15% did not have a significant effect on rainbow trout growth and nutritional indices and also improved the health status and quality of the fillet biochemical composition.