Rapid bioassay of toxicity in environmental water by LDL-uptaking activity of human cell

Recently, environmental waters involving river water usually used as a source of drinking water have been polluted by various chemicals produced by human activities. We reported in our previous work that the variation of toxicity in urban river water is so fast that the general bioassays cannot catch up with the variation. Thus, a bioassay that can rapidly detect the toxicity is required. in this work, we developed a rapid bioassay based on LDL, uptaking activity of human cells and elucidated its fundamental characteristics. Also, toxicity of 30 chemicals was evaluated by this assay and compared with that measured by a conventional cell growth inhibition assay. By the method developed, the cytotoxicity of river water was elucidated in only 4 hours. Therefore, the new bioassay proposed in this work is very promising for water quality management.