Cytotoxicity evaluation of synthesized chemicals using suspension-cultured fish cells

Abstract

A suspension-cultured fish cell line was applied to develop a rapid and convenient cytotoxicity assay to evaluate toxicity of a large number of chemicals for fish. Suspension-cultured fish cells, CHSE-sp cells, and monolayer-cultured fish cells, CHSE-214 cells were used. Cytotoxicity of 11 synthesized chemicals chosen from various chemical classes was determined by the neutral red assay. A good correlation was obtained between cytotoxicity values of 11 chemicals to the CHSE-sp cells and to the CHSE-214 cells. Also, good correlations were observed between in vitro toxicity data obtained from the assay using two types of cultured fish cells and in vivo toxicity data obtained from a database on fathead minnow and rainbow trout. From these results, the method using suspension-cultured fish cells used in this study was considered applicable for a screening test method prior to in vivo testing.