What’s the next big thing in recycled water quality monitoring? Utilities and regulators share a common goal of protecting public health, but traditional testing focuses on known compounds of emerging concern. In vitro cell-based assays have shown promise as bioscreening tools to assess environmental mixtures and prioritize sites requiring further investigations. These assays are designed to respond to groups of chemicals acting via a common mode of action by initiating a molecular event (e.g., cell receptor activation) associated with specific biological pathways. As such, they offer an integrative approach to complement conventional chemical and toxicity testing.
To evaluate the robustness and utility of cell assays, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority (SCCWRP) has conducted a series of laboratory and field studies. This presentation will describe SCCWRP’s work to develop performance-based protocols and apply these tools to screen water samples from various environments, including recycled water. SCCWRP’s initial work focused on the optimization and evaluation of endocrine-related cell assays, such as the estrogen receptor assay. These studies have shown that cell-based assays can successfully benchmark water of different qualities. Wastewater effluents had the highest levels of endocrine activity, while most streams and advanced treated water samples showed little to no bioactivity.
Moreover, bioscreening responses were generally in agreement with available chemical monitoring data. Additional research was conducted to characterize the relationship between cell-based and animal/community responses induced by environmental chemicals. Altogether, the findings demonstrate that cell-based assays can provide valuable information on both occurrence and biological impact of contaminants in the environment.
