title: Rapid assessment of the toxicity of oil sands process-affected waters using fish cell lines.
abstract: Rapid and reliable toxicity assessment of oil sands process-affected waters (OSPW) is needed to support oil sands reclamation projects. Conventional toxicity tests using whole animals are relatively slow, costly, and often subjective, while at the same time requiring the sacrifice of test organisms as is the case with lethal dosage/concentration assays. A nonlethal alternative, using fish cell lines, has been developed for its potential use in supporting oil sands reclamation planning and to help predict the viability of aquatic reclamation models such as end-pit lakes. This study employed six fish cell lines (WF-2, GFSk-S1, RTL-W1, RTgill-W1, FHML, FHMT) in 24 h viability assays for rapid fluorometric assessment of cellular integrity and functionality. Forty-nine test water samples collected from the surface of oil sands developments in the Athabasca Oil Sands deposit, north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, were evaluated in blind. Small subsample volumes (8 ml) were mixed with 2 ml of 5× concentrated exposure media and used for direct cell exposures. All cell line responses in terms of viability as measured by Alamar blue assay, correlated well with the naphthenic acids (NA) content in the samples (R (2) between 0.4519 and 0.6171; p<0.0001) when data comparisons were performed after the bioassays. NA or total acid-extractable organics group has been shown to be responsible for most of the acute toxicity of OSPW and our results further corroborate this. The multifish cell line bioassay provides a strong degree of reproducibility among tested cell lines and good relative sensitivity of the cell line bioassay as compared to available in vivo data that could lead to cost effective, high-throughput screening assays.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada, N2L 3C5.
authors.forename: Bryan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sansom
authors.forename: Nguyen T K
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Vo
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kavanagh
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hanner
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mackinnon
authors.forename: D George
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Dixon
authors.forename: Lucy E J
authors.initials: LE
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000416:Alberta; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D002264:Carboxylic Acids / Q000032:analysis; D002460:Cell Line; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D003470:Culture Media / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation / Q000379:methods*; D005399:Fishes; D007928:Lethal Dose 50; D010078:Oxazines; D010578:Petroleum / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000032:analysis*; D018675:Toxicity Tests / Q000379:methods*; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis / Q000633:toxicity*; D014966:Xanthenes
chemical_list: D002264:Carboxylic Acids; D003470:Culture Media; D010078:Oxazines; D010578:Petroleum; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical; D014966:Xanthenes; C005843:resazurin; D012822:Silicon Dioxide; C046170:naphthenic acid