Surface water toxicity assessment by ecotoxicological andin vitrotoxicologocical assays

Abstract

Environmental pollution is an ever-growing problem in today's consumer world. Disposal of chemicals and their unwanted by-products into the natural environment poses significant risks to ecosystems and human health. The receiving natural environment is a sink to chemical mixtures and this triggers a range of potential environmental and health problems. It is therefore imperative to develop rapid reliable techniques for initial screening and establishment of toxic potential and risks. The selection of the catchment study locations in Tasmania (creeks stream and rivers) was the result of recorded observations following rainfall of anomalous oyster population mortality and adverse human health in the geographical catchment area. A biological impact was identified in the study area but the casual agents and environmental triggers were unclear hence the need for in vitro toxicology assessment techniques for identifying the triggers and risks associated with exposure to environmental contaminants. The aim of this paper is to present findings of in vitro cytotoxicity assays and their potential in assessing contaminated river water toxicity using human cell cultures. The key to the approach adopted was to investigate exposure to the environmental pollutants and generate human toxicity profiles with a high degree of confidence using cell viability and damage as end points. Furthermore, correlation of the toxicity results using human cell cultures as ecological receptors in the study area clearly indicated the usefulness of and sensitivity of human-derived cells in detecting the toxicity of unknown chemical mixtures.

UVB damage onset and progression 24 h post exposure in human-derived skin cells

“…The present results of acute UVB exposure indicated a dose dependent cellular damage expression as measured by the in vitro assays MTS, NR and LDH used. The organelles cellular damage agrees with previous published literature on the three assays [21] , [22] , [23] . The NR data also indicated a UVB dose dependent damage expression with a further presentation of damage 24 h post exposure.…”

Steroid hormone concentrations and physiological toxicity of water from selected dams in Namibia

“…Similar results were found for selected rivers in the Western Cape, South Africa (Pool and Magcwebeba 2009), while variable levels of cytotoxicity were detected in rivers in studies done in Tasmania and Slovenia (Khalil and Winder 2008;Žegura et al 2009). …”

In Vitro UVB induced Cellular Damage Assessment Using Primary Human Skin Derived Fibroblasts

“…Exposure of fibroblasts to UVB doses ranging from 0.7-5.6J/cm 2 triggered an immediate decrease in the mitochondrial lactate dehydrogenase enzymatic activity in the exposed cells as measured by the MTS assay ( Figure 2). This decrease in activity was more significant if the exposed cells were further incubated 24h post exposure before assessing mitochondrial lactate dehydrogenase activity 10,12 (Figure 4).…”