Toxicology of Environmental Samples From the Perspective of Biodefense

The ability of the recombinant bacterial SWITCH-Test to recognise agents possibly used for terroristic attacks was investigated. For this purpose genotoxic and cytotoxic dose dependent response of S. typhimurium to 30 environmental samples provided from the University of Pécs, Hungary was determined. In addition to these samples, reference samples were used for validation of the test. These mainly consist of solutions containing metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, mercury, and sodium acide. Furthermore, the toxicity of the cyanobacterial toxin Microcystin-LR was an example for a biological toxin is determined. The results were used to show that the SWITCH-Test can be a valuable tool for the determination of genotoxic and cytotoxic potentials of environmental samples, after the possible release of dangerous chemicals by terrorists. In this connection it was shown that the test is able to detect a bioterrorist assault with chemicals immediately and fast. This would be a prerequisite for a rapid evacuation of the population and evolvement of an alertness strategy. With the example of Microcystin-LR the effect, of an easy prepareable and cheap toxin that is probable to be used by terrorists, is shown. On the basis of these experiments dose responce relationships for the genotoxic and cytotoxic response were established. From these, two samples were identified as genotoxic and nine as cytotoxic. The reference samples with known constituent concentrations revealed the SWITCH-Test to be a sensitive for tool for such applications