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Professor Christer Hogstrand, King's College London and Dr Peter Kille, Cardiff University

FIGCS: An in vitro model to replace ecotoxicity testing of fish to pharmaceuticals

Abstract

As the use of medicines increases, so does their presence in the environment. The impact of pharmaceutical ingredients on ecosystems is now a real concern and human and veterinary drugs must therefore be tested to establish their environmental safety for example by using toxicity tests to establish what concentrations of the medicines in water would kill fish. Using current OECD guidelines a minimum of 42 fish are typically used in a single such test, with lethality as an endpoint. Where safety to the environment cannot be established, the test must be repeated on additional species or followed by chronic studies, requiring more fish.

An in vitro system has been established, based on cells from fish gills, which allows the cells to be exposed to chemicals in test water, mimicking how free-living fish would be exposed to chemicals in the environment. The model has already been demonstrated to accurately predict toxicity of metals in water. This project will investigate whether it can be adapted to replace live fish toxicity tests for pharmaceuticals.

Six pharmaceuticals with known toxicological effects in live fish will be tested in the Fish In vitro Gill Cell System (FIGCS). If it was found to be sufficiently predictive of toxicity in live fish, the model could provide a quicker, cheaper and more humane way of testing environmental toxicity of pharmaceuticals. On average, two fish provide enough cells for 45 FIGCS units; thus not only could the system replace exposures of live fish but also dramatically reduce the number of fish used.