An "in vitro" approach to water pollution monitoring

Pollutants of River Lambro, a tributary River Po, were monitored by their potential to induce 1A1 isoform of cytochrome P450 in the FaO hepatoma cell line. Extracts of water samples taken during different months over about one year were fractionated by reverse phase HPLC technique. Six fractions of decreasing polarity were collected, concentrated, freeze-dried and suspended in DMSO for the treatment of the cells. Aliquots of such suspensions were dissolved in the growth medium and left for 48 h in contact with FaO cells, that were maintained in 24-well plates. Cellular monolayers were also exposed to a mixture of the six fractions, to evaluate the effects of all the pollutants mixed together in the original water sample. The CYP1A1-dependent ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) activity was fluorimetrically detected as a measure of inducing potential, and total protein content was evaluated as cytotoxicity end-point. The results showed significant increases of EROD activity over the controls in nearly all the fractions with marked reduction of viability only in two of the mixed samples. The effects of the mixtures were not simply additive, thus suggesting both synergistic and antagonistic interactions. The potential utility of this simple and fast bioassay in environmental risk/hazard assessment is clearly apparent.