Toxicity testing organic chemicals

I. H. Suffet and M. Malalyandi, (Eds.), "Organic Pollutants in Hater. Sampling, Analysis, and Toxicity Testing", American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1987. 

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Draft Update OECD Guideline or Testing of Chemicals - Fish Early-Life Stage Toxicity Test, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Paris, France, 1991 OECD guidelines, TGP/145, 22 pp. 

Hermens J, Busser F, Leeuwangh P, Musch A. 1985a. Quantitative structure-activity relationships and mixture toxicity of organic chemicals in Photobacterium phosphoreum the Microtox test. Ecotoxicol Environ Safety 9 17-25. 

DeLeon IR, Antoine SR. 1985. Clinical screening test for toxic volatile organic chemicals in blood. Clinical Ecology 3 108-109. 

Devillers J, Bintein S, Domine D, Karcher W. A general QSAR model for predicting the toxicity of organic chemicals to luminescent bacteria (Microtox test). SAR QSAR Environ Res 1995 4 29-38. 

Curtis, C., Lima, A., Lozano, S.J. and Veith, G.D. (1982) Evaluation of a bacterial bioluminescence bioassay as a method for predicting acute toxicity of organic chemicals to fish. In Aquatic Toxicology and Hazard Assessment Fifth Conference, ASTM STP 766, Pearson, J.G., Foster, R.B. and Bishop, W.E. (eds), pp. 170-178. American Society for Testing and Materials, Philadelphia, PA. 

OECD 207 (1984) Guideline for testing of chemicals earthworm, acute toxicity tests. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris. 

A series of experiments were ran looking at the toxicity of organic chemicals in the presence of 0.74 (tmoles calcium (25 ppm, this concentration inhibits reduction of the dye completely) and 2.5 (tmoles EDTA. Four of the 35 chemicals tested had greater toxicity with EDTA and calcium than in the controls. Two chemicals were no longer toxic. The toxicity of 16 of die chemicals was not affected by the calcium and EDTA. The toxicity of 13 chemicals was decreased by at least 10% but was not eliminated by the addition of EDTA and cal-... 

It appears that the toxicity of the trichothecenes tested depends on the number of ester functions in the molecule. Compounds with more free hydroxyl groups are less toxic and also more soluble and there seems to be some relationship between aqueous solubility and toxicity. This is not surprising, sincetheMicrotoxassay determines the toxicity of the substances in aqueous solutions and it has been found that, in general, the aquatic toxicity of organic chemicals decreases with increasing hydrophilic character (Ribo and Kaiser 1983). The octanol/water partition coefficients of organic chemicals... 

Toxicity Bioassay. Ninety-six hour acute toxicity tests were conducted on the effluent streams of major industries. A static renewal procedure was used in which waste waters of various dilutions were renewed at 24 hour intervals over a 96 hour period. Rainbow trout was used as the test organism. Tests were conducted at 13°C in 20 liter aquaria according to standard procedures (22), Results are summarized in Table 8. Chemical and toxicity test results indicate that the trace element quantities identified in Table 8 are not acutely toxic under the prevailing conditions and unlikely to pose an acute threat to aquatic life. In this case a chronic toxicity assessment would require additional research. 

Most statutory toxicity testing is done on individual compounds. In the natural environment, however, organisms are exposed to complex mixtures of pollutants. Toxicity testing procedures are described for environmental samples that contain mixtures of different chemicals. 

There is a continuing interest in the development of biomarker assays for use in environmental risk assessment. As discussed elsewhere (Section 16.6), there are both scientific and ethical reasons for seeking to introduce in vitro assays into protocols for the regulatory testing of chemicals. Animal welfare organizations would like to see the replacement of toxicity tests by more animal-friendly alternatives for all types of risk assessment—whether for environmental risks or for human health. 

Famphur is considered a Class II toxic compound to the Japanese quail (Cotumix japonica) according to the classification of Hill and Camardese (1986). Class II compounds (very toxic) kill 50% of the test organisms on diets containing 40 to 200 mg chemical/kg ration for 5 days followed by a 3-day observation. By comparison, the 50% kill in other classes (in mg/kg diet) is <40 in Class I (highly toxic), >200 to 1000 in Class III (moderately toxic), >1000 to <5000 in Class IV (slightly toxic), and >5000 in Class V (practically nontoxic) (Hill and Camardese 1986). Smith (1987) rates famphur as a Class I toxic compound, as judged by results of dietary tests with mallards. 

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