Evaluation of the cytotoxicity of the first 20 MEIC chemicals in two hepatoma cell lines with different xenobiotic metabolism capacities

By Bassi, A.M. - Bosco, O. - Brenci, S. - Adamo, D. - Penco, S. - Piana, S. - Ferro, M. - Nanni, G.

The cytotoxicity of the first 20 chemicals on the MEIC list was evaluated using two hepatoma cell lines having different xenobiotic metabolic capacities, one derived from the rat (HTC), and one of human origin (Hep G2). Two endpoints were measured to evaluate cytotoxicity: colony-forming ability (CF), and cell viability of the attached monolayer (CV), evaluated as total macromolecular content. The CF test provided the most sensitive endpoint, due to the lower number of exposed cells in comparison with the CV test. Using the CF assay, the Hep G2 cell line showed higher sensitivity than the HTC cell line to some chemicals known to be metabolised in vivo. The IC50s obtained under the different experimental conditions varied as a consequence of phenotypic differences between the cell lines, and of the nature of the endpoints. The most toxic chemicals were malathion, diazepam and amitriptyline (IC50: 0.001- 0.1 mM). The solvents tested produced the lowest toxic effects (IC50: > 10 mM). These findings suggest that hepatoma cell lines possessing various specific enzyme activities could be usefully employed in a battery of tests designed to reproduce in vitro the wide range of biochemical properties expressed by the cells in the whole organism.