ALTEX :: Alternatives to Animal Experiments

1990, Volume 2

The Use of the R1-Fish Cell Culture for Detection of Toxicity of Waste Water Accoding to the German Waste Water Act

Wilfried Ahne and Marlies Halder

Institut fuer Zoologie und Hydrobiologie der Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet D-Muenchen

SUMMARY

A fibroblastic cell line (R1) established in 1981 from the liver tissue of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) has been used for cytotoxicity testing of 301 waste water samples. The results obtained were compared with the results of the fish test performed parallely according to the German Waste Water Act. 54% of the samples proved to be neither fish toxic nor cytotoxic, 22% were fish and cytotoxic, 5% only fish toxic and 19% only cytotoxic. The results show that the R1-cell culture is useful to determine cytotoxicity of aquatic pollutants.

Keywords: waste water toxicity, fish test, R1-fish cell culture