Primary mono-layer cell cultures as model system for studying of environmental toxic agents: organochlorine compounds

Organic pollution of water and soil has various harmful effects on biological systems (1). Chlorine substituted benzol compounds are one these xenobiotic substances, which are toxic to the environment (2). They can also accumulate in plant and animal tissues (3), which provides ample reason to study the effects of sublethal doses of chloro-benzols on various cell cultures. In this study the toxic effects of chloro-benzols were investigated on avian fibroblast and mammalian hepatocyte cultures. The fibroblast cultures were prepared from eggs preadapted to chloro-benzol during a fourteen-day-long incubation period. The Wistar rat hepatocyte monolayer cultures were exposed to a direct treatment of 1,2,4-tri-chloro-benzol (0.01 microgram/ml-1 microgram/ml) for 3 hours. Following the treatment with chloro-benzol, the viability of the cells was measured, together with lactic dehydrogenase activity, in both kinds of cultures. The effect of tri-chloro-benzol treatment on chicken eggs was not significant. The cells of chicken embryos were not damaged after the 1,2,4-tri-chloro-benzol treatment. The hepatocyte cultures showed the toxic effects of 1,2,4-tri-chloro-benzol after the direct and acute treatment. The cell viability decreased and the LDH activity increased significantly. These results show that the primary cell cultures are suitable for studying the effects of organochlorine compounds.