Towards the development of standardised sea turtle primary cell cultures for toxicity testing

Chemical contaminants are known to accumulate in marine megafauna globally, but little is known about how this impacts animal health. In vitro assays offer an ethical, reproducible and cost-effective alternative to live animal toxicity testing on large, long-lived or threatened species, such as sea turtles. However, using a cell culture from a single animal raise the question of whether the toxicity observed adequately represents the toxicity in that species. This study examined variation in the cytotoxic response of primary skin fibroblasts established from seven green (Chelonia mydas) and five loggerhead (Caretta caretta) sea turtles. Cell viability using resazurin dye was examined in response to exposure to five contaminants. The variation in cytotoxicity was generally low (within a factor of five) for both independent analyses of the same cell culture, and cell cultures from different individuals. This low within and between cell culture variation indicates that primary sea turtle cell cultures can provide a suitable approach to understanding toxicity in sea turtles. In addition, green and loggerhead turtle cells showed similar toxicity to the compounds tested, indicating that only subtle differences in chemical sensitivity may exist between sea turtle species. This study provides a framework for using species-specific cell cultures in future toxicological studies on sea turtles. Although in vivo studies are the gold standard for toxicological studies and species-specific risk assessments, the development of in vitro tools can provide important information when in vivo studies are not possible or practical. For large, endangered species such as sea turtles that are exposed to, and accumulate, a large number of contaminants, using validated cell cultures may facilitate the rapid assessment of chemical risk to these animals.