EFFECT OF SOME FLAME-RETARDANTS ON VARIOUS CULTURED MAMMALIAN CELLS.

Abstract

The increasing scope of government regulation is leading to a vastly expanded market for chemical flame retardants. Their toxicological and biological properties, however, have not been investigated sufficiently. In general the animal experiments which have been the routine method for the evaluation of toxic effect of chemicals take a long time and much money. From the above-described viewpoint, we examined in this report the cytotoxicity of some flame retardants on various cultured mammalian cells and investigated its usefulness as a simple, rapid and relatively inexpensive screening method. The results obtained were as follows; 1) The cytotoxic degree caused by several flame retardants on HeLa cells correlated fairly well to the oral acute toxicity (LD_&lt50&gt) on mice or rats. Enlargement of the cell and nucleus sizes and appearance of polynuclear cells were the characteristic changes by morphological examination. 2) Similar effect was observed on other cell lines tested, except on DL 1 cell lines which were more sensitive to some of the tested flame retardants. 3) Examination on the primary cultured cells from liver, kidney, brain and muscle showed that there was no marked difference among their susceptibility. In addition, the applicability and usefulness of the cytotoxicity experiments using cultured mammalian cells were discussed.