Yeast Cells as a Test System for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals

Abstract

The first 13 substances of the MEIC (multicentre evaluation study of in vitro cytotoxicity) project were tested in a test system in which the generation time of yeast cells in their logarithmic growth phase was used as the endpoint. Toxic effects, expressed as EC10, EC20 or EC50 values, were correlated with octanol/water partition coefficients. The correlation was found to be very high, indicating that the lipophilicity of substances is a key parameter for describing the toxicity of chemicals.