Formulating biossay data of chemicals and environmental water

Shoji, R Sakoda, A Sakai, Y Suzuki, M

R. Shoji et al., Formulating biossay data of chemicals and environmental water, WATER SCI T, 42(3-4), 2000, pp. 115-123

18

INGLESE

Article

Environment/Ecology

WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

0273-1223 → ACNP

42

3-4

2000

115 - 123

ISI

0273-1223(2000)42:3-4<115:FBDOCA>2.0.ZU;2-A

The quality of environmental waters such as rivers is often deteriorated by various kinds of trace and unidentified chemicals despite the recent devel opment of sewage systems and wastewater treatment technologies. In addition to contamination by particular toxicants, complex toxicity due to multi-co mponent chemicals could be much more serious. The environmental situation i n bodies of water in Japan led us to apply bioassays for monitoring the wat er quality of environmental waters in order to express the direct and poten tial toxicity to human beings and ecosystems rather than determinating conc entrations of particular chemicals. However, problems arose from the fact t hat bioassays for pharmaceutical purposes generally required complicated, t ime-consuming, expert procedures. Also, a methodology for feedback of the r esultant toxicity data to water environment management has not been establi shed yet. To this end, we developed a novel bioassay based on the low-densi ty lipoprotein (LDL) uptake activity of human hepatoblastoma cells. The ass ay enabled us to directly detect the toxicity of environmental waters withi n 4 hours of exposure. This is a significantly quick and easy procedure as compared to that of conventional bioassays. The toxicity data for 255 selec ted chemicals and environmental waters obtained by this method were organiz ed by a mathematical equation in order to make those data much more effecti vely and practically useful to the management of environmental waters. Our methodology represents a promising example of applying bioassays to monitor environmental water quality and generating potential solutions to the toxi city problems encountered.