Comparative Assessment of the Sensitivity of Fish Early‐Life Stage, Daphnia, and Algae Tests to the Chronic Ecotoxicity of Xenobiotics: Perspectives for Alternatives to Animal Testing

Abstract

No-observed-effect concentrations (NOECs) are used in environmental hazard classification and labeling of chemicals and their environmental risk assessment. They are typically obtained using standard tests such as the fish early-life stage (FELS) toxicity test, the chronic Daphnia reproduction test, and the algae growth inhibition test. Given the demand to replace and reduce animal tests, we explored the impact of the FELS toxicity test on the determination of effect concentrations by comparing the FELS toxicity test and the Daphnia and algae acute or chronic toxicity tests. Lowest-observedeffect concentrations (LOECs) were used instead of NOECs for better comparison with median lethal or effect concentration data. A database of FELS toxicity data for 223 compounds was established. Corresponding Daphnia and algae toxicity tests were identified using established databases (US Environmental Protection Agency ECOTOX, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development QSAR Toolbox, eChemPortal, EnviroTox, and OpenFoodTox). Approximately 9.5% of the investigated compounds showed a 10-fold higher sensitivity with the FELS toxicity test in comparison with the lowest effect concentrations obtained with any of the other tests. Some of these compounds have been known or considered as endocrine disrupting, or are other non-narcotic chemicals, indicating that the higher sensitivity in the FELS toxicity test is related to a specific mechanism of action. Targeting these mechanisms by alternative test systems or endpoints, using fish embryos for instance, may allow reduction or replacement of the FELS toxicity test or may allow us to prioritize compounds for conduction of the FELS toxicity test.

Contamination and Toxicity of Surface Waters Along Rural and Urban Regions of the Capibaribe River in Tropical Northeastern Brazil

“…Zebrafish lethal endpoints based on Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (2013) used in the present study were more sensitive than Daphnia immobility and algae growth inhibition tests in 16% of 82 compounds tested (Rawlings et al, 2019) and are considered good surrogates for acute fish toxicity tests (Belanger et al, 2013). Fish early‐life stage toxicity tests including zebrafish acute and sublethal developmental endpoints used in the present study were more sensitive than Daphnia reproduction and algae growth inhibition tests in 9.5% of tests involving 223 compounds (Teixidó et al, 2020). Zebrafish embryo‐larval bioassays focused on lethal and sublethal endpoints are increasingly being used worldwide as efficient and sensitive tools for assessing the ichthyotoxicity of surface waters and sediments in North America (VanLandeghem et al, 2012), Central America (Wilson et al, 2021), Europe (Schweizer et al, 2018), and Asia (Chen et al, 2015).…”

Environmental Consequences of Rubber Crumb Application: Soil and Water Pollution

“…Phenanthrene and benzo[ a ]pyrene are very often used as model PAHs, and zinc is one of the most researched and described metals in ecotoxicology. It is also used as a reference metal in the Ecotox database [ 51 ].…”

Docking and QSAR of Aminothioureas at the SARS-CoV-2 S-Protein–Human ACE2 Receptor Interface

“…Molecules 2020, 25, x 10 of 14 TA1535_10RLI/TA1535_NA tests on Salmonella typhimurium bacterial strain [67] and mouse [68] carcinogenicity, and Daphnia fish [69] toxicity were carried out.…”

“…Toxicology studies were carried out using online implementation [65] of the PreADMET program [66]. From among available statistical models, Ames TA100_10RLI/TA100_NA/TA1535_10RLI/ TA1535_NA tests on Salmonella typhimurium bacterial strain [67] and mouse [68] carcinogenicity, and Daphnia fish [69] toxicity were carried out.…”