Abstract
In environmental water has been reported the occurrence of thousands of chemicals, in which there are many toxic substances including carcinogens. These hazardous micropollutants may be not completely removed by conventional water purification process. To secure the safety of drinking water, it is highly necessary to monitor these toxic substances. For this purpose, simple bio-assay systems such as Ames test have been widely developed to monitor mutagenic micropollutants in water. In the present paper, the principle and limitation of bio-assay system were discussed. Based on the discussion, we examined whether cytotoxicity test is available as bioassay of water micropollutants. Cytotoxicity test using cultured HL-60 cells, liposomal damage test, and Ames mutagenicity test were applied to the substances recovered from tap and raw waters. No correlation was observed between the results of mutagenicity and cytotoxicity, while the results of cytotoxicity related to those of liposomal membrane damage. These results indicate that cytotoxicity tests will be effective to estimate the safety of drinking water and that a concept of cytotoxicity matrix may be available for identification of toxic micropollutants.
