PARENT SESSION
SA3 - Molecular/Cellular Toxicology
Chair: Schlenk, Dan1, 1 University of California-Riverside, Riverside, CA
8:00 AM to 12:00 PM - Sunday, 17 November 2002
Room Ballroom H
(026) Interactions among metals, water chemistry and toxicological responses in cell culture of gill tissue.
Brown, Ray*,1,2, Walker, Paul1, Hogstrand, Christer1, 1 King's College, London, UK2 Christian Brothers University, Memphis, TN, USA
ABSTRACT- Speciation and complexation by naturally occurring ligands strongly influence toxicity of metals to freshwater fish at the gill. Gills are uniquely important in understanding cellular and molecular toxicology given their importance in ventilation, ionoregulation, osmoregulation and excretion. A major current development in the investigation of metal-ligand binding and toxicity in fish involves a cell culture system in which primary gill cells are grown on membrane supports that model fish gills in vivo. This method allows test water samples to be placed on the apical side of the membrane mimicking environmental exposure; and media on the basolateral side mimicking exposure to blood plasma. This system has the potential to model interactions among waterborne metals, water chemistry, physiological response systems, and toxicologically relevant effects (e.g. ion transport disruption). The work presented here provides extrapolations between in vivo and in vitro modelling of metal toxicity as well as advancements in the improvement of the cell culture technique.
Key words: metallothionein, Na+/K+-ATPase, hormonal induction, rainbow trout