Fish are the most frequently used vertebrates in regulatory ecotoxicology. Millions of fish are in this way used annually in animal tests. Alternatives to reduce or even replace fish tests for hazard assessment are of high societal relevance and urgency. Fish cell lines offer such an alternative.
What are fish cell lines?
- A cell line is a culture of cells in a culture dish, derived from a tissue of origin – e.g. the fish gills.
- We work with immortal cell lines: they can be cultured indefinitely; no further fish need to be sacrificed.
- As the basic unit of life, and as targets of chemical exposure, we use cells as surrogate for what happens in whole fish.
