The development of a hybrid fish gill cell-polymer PAMPA assay system to replace bioconcentration factor tests for highly hydrophobic compounds

• Applicant: Dr. Sabine Schnell
• Subject Area: Hydrogeology, Hydrology, Limnology, Urban Water Management, Water Chemistry, Integrated Water Resources Management ; Analytical Chemistry ; Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 260617395

In recent decades, the worldwide outburst in technological and industrial advancements has greatly increased the use of chemicals as well as the concerns for the environment and health. Regarding the aquatic environment, the accumulation of chemicals in fish and other aquatic organisms has been a significant concern to industry, government regulators, the academic community, and the general public for a long time. Evaluations of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) properties of chemicals are necessary in order to provide protection to aquatic wildlife from harmful effects of pollutants on human health. The information on bioaccumulation of chemicals is an important requirement for environmental risk assessment and for regulatory regimes such as the EU regulation No. 1907/2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and restriction of Chemicals (REACH). As part of REACH it is most likely that many chemicals produced will need to be tested for their potential to bioaccumulate. Bioaccumulation studies investigate the enrichment of chemicals in living organism, usually distinguishing between the uptake of chemicals from the diet and direct accumulation from the water (bioconcentration) by fish. These studies using fish are carried out based on the technical guideline such as the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD) 305 Bioaccumulation in Fish: Aqueous and Dietary Exposure. For aqueous OECD 305 test 80 fish per compound are routinely used and for the dietary tests up to 230 fish. There are over 3000 chemicals that require further testing as part of REACH legislation, which will mean the use of up to 242,000 fish for toxicology testing. There is a worldwide desire to reduce numbers of animals used in environmental risk assessment, thus an active research agenda exists to identify relevant alternatives to whole animal toxicity testing. The current project will evaluate a system that does not use animals as a replacement for fish bioconcentration studies. More specifically, we will focus on a specific group of chemicals that are poorly water-soluble because there are a number of scientific issues associated with developing alternative test methods for this class of compounds. Previous systems that use artificial membranes show encouraging results for predicting bioconcentration of fairly water soluble compounds. However, these systems do not incorporate a biologically active epithelium and thus may not accurately predict bioconcentration. The current study overcomes this by combining fish gill cell cultures with features of previous methodologies using artificial membranes. The study will compare uptake and elimination of compounds by two gill cell culture models; a primary Fish Gill cell Culture System (FIGCS) and a cell line RTgill-W1. Data will be used to generate predictive models and the results will be compared to known whole fish bioconcentration factor values as a means of validation.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Hosts: Dr. Nic Bury; Professor Christer Hogstrand