title: Gill cell culture systems as models for aquatic environmental monitoring.
abstract: A vast number of chemicals require environmental safety assessments for market authorisation. To ensure acceptable water quality, effluents and natural waters are monitored for their potential harmful effects. Tests for market authorisation and environmental monitoring usually involve the use of large numbers of organisms and, for ethical, cost and logistic reasons, there is a drive to develop alternative methods that can predict toxicity to fish without the need to expose any animals. There is therefore a great interest in the potential to use cultured fish cells in chemical toxicity testing. This review summarises the advances made in the area and focuses in particular on a system of cultured fish gill cells grown into an epithelium that permits direct treatment with water samples.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Division of Diabetes and Nutritional Science, Franklin-Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NH, UK.
authors.forename: Nic R
authors.initials: NR
authors.lastname: Bury
authors.forename: Sabine
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schnell
authors.forename: Christer
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hogstrand
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D018929:Cell Culture Techniques; D002460:Cell Line; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005399:Fishes / Q000502:physiology*; D005880:Gills / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000633:toxicity*
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical
keywords: Biomonitoring; Environmental risk assessment; FIGCS; Fish; In vitro; Toxicology