134 Abstracts / Reproductive Toxicology 28 (2009) 125–138 checked and recorded. At 48 h, embryos were transferred into stan- dard water to evaluate hatching success and tail length at 144h. Samples that produced high mortality during 48 h were diluted to observe whether adverse effects or not were produced at lower concentration. FET detected big differences between inﬂuents and efﬂuents toxicity in most of WWTPs. Results: Embryos exposed to most of water samples from inﬂu- ents at WWTPs showed 100% mortality. We observed severe abnormalities in zebraﬁsh embryos exposed to water samples from efﬂuents at WWTPs. The main abnormalities were tail defor- mations, pericardial oedema, slow heart rate and a high rate of mortality at 144h. Water samples from DWTPs did not produce any adverse effect or mortality. Conclusions: The results of the present investigation show (1) that FET with zebraﬁsh is a sensitive model in routine wastewater control, (2) their usefulness to evaluate chemicals in waters with teratogenic effects, and (3) the good performance of treatment sys- tems currently used. After this study we are beginning to evaluate these samples with embryonic stem cell test (EST) and micromass test in order to establish a correlation with zebraﬁsh assay. Further reading [1] Lammer E, Carr GJ, Wendler K, Rawlings JM, Belanger SE, Braunbeck T. Is the ﬁsh embryo toxicity test (FET) with the zebraﬁsh (Danio rerio) a potential alterna- tive for the ﬁsh acute toxicity test? Comp Biochem Physiol C: Pharmacol Toxicol Endocrinol 2009;149(2):196–209. [2] Nagel R. DarT: the embryo test with the zebraﬁsh Danio rerio—a general model in ecotoxicology and toxicology. ALTEX 2002;19(Suppl. 1):38–48. [3] Kimmel CB, Ballard WW, Kimmel SR, Ullmann B, Schilling TF. Stages of embryonic development of the zebraﬁsh. Dev Dynam 1995;203(3):253–310. doi:10.1016/j.reprotox.2009.05.043 Assessment of teratogenic effects of MSW landﬁlls by means of an adapted FETAX assay J. de Lapuente ∗ , J. González-Linares, M. Borràs Research Centre of Toxicology (CERETOX), Barcelona Science Park, Baldiri i Reixac 10-12, 08028 Barcelona, Spain The introduction of chemical products into the environment can cause long-term effects on the ecosystems and recent regulations display the increasing concern on the consequences of this inter- ference. Increasing efforts are being made to determine the extent of contamination in particularly affected areas using diverse meth- ods to assess the ecotoxicological impact on a particular area. The present work focuses on the impact that municipal solid waste can have on the surrounding area. We used a modiﬁed FETAX method to determine the extent of toxicological load in different sample soils obtained near three municipal solid waste landﬁlls in Catalo- nia (Spain). The results show, as expected, that the Garraf landﬁll facility produces more embryotoxic damage to the surroundings, than the other ones: Can Mata landﬁll and Montferrer I Castellbó landﬁll. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how different man- agement of complex sources of contamination as the controlled dumping sites can modulate the presence of toxics in the environ- ment and their effects and through this, help determine the safer way to treat these wastes To this effect some conceptual modiﬁcations have been made on the established ASTM protocol, i.e., the calculations stated in this guideline include obtaining precise values of ED 50 and LD 50 , which requires the performance of repeated range-ﬁnding stud- ies (and, as a consequence, a long time and the use of a high number of embryos) and is not really relevant for environmental samples. A more rapid and simpliﬁed test, with a consequently adapted calculation system, is proposed as suitable for ecotoxico- logical applications. doi:10.1016/j.reprotox.2009.05.044 PCBs as possible exogenous risk factors in the pathogenesis of the bladder extrophy–epispadias complex: The blade project Tait Sabrina a,∗ , La Rocca Cinzia a , Luconi Michaela b , Faustman Elaine c , Maggi Mario b , Mantovani Alberto a a Dept. of Food Safety and Veterinary Public Health, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Rome, Italy b Dept. of Clinical Physiopathology, University of Florence, Italy c Institute for Risk Analysis and Risk Communication, Dept. of Environ- mental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Introduction: The bladder extrophy–epispadias complex (BEEC) is a multifactorial disorder including congenital malformations of genitourinary tract such as epispadia, bladder extrophy and cloacal extrophy. Environmental contaminants such as endocrine disrupt- ing chemicals (EDC) are suggested as potential risk factors. Among EDC, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) deserve special attention because of widespread dietary exposure. The aim of BLADE project is to investigate the possible involvement of PCBs in the BEEC patho- genesis. PCBs are a numerous and diversiﬁed group of more than 200 congeners that can be grouped according to their mechanisms of action, e.g., binding with aryl hydrocarbon receptor. Thus, congener composition is important to understand the potential effects of mixtures of PCB present in human ﬂuids and/or tissues. One study performed within BLADE has characterized the levels and patterns of PCB congeners in the adipose tissue of Italian subjects. Methods: PCB congeners have been divided in three groups based on possible mechanism additivity and their concentration in each mixture has been derived from ﬁndings in human adipose tissues and transformed on the basis of the serum lipid content. These three mixtures were then used for toxicological assays on smooth muscle corpora cavernosa cells (hFPSM), an established primary culture cell line obtained from 9 to 12 wk fetuses. Both chromosomal analysis and PCR for sry gene conﬁrmed the male origin of fetuses. Preliminary results: PCBs was ﬁrst evaluated for their cytotoxic- ity by the MTS assay and none of the concentrations substantially affected cell viability. Then, cells were exposed for 72h to the three different mixtures and evaluated for gene expression pro- ﬁle by microarray analysis using the Agilent platform featuring the whole human genome (∼40,000 genes). Preliminary estima- tion of results has shown an overall modulation of 478 genes (fold change ± 1,2; p-value < 0.01) with relevant differences among PCBs group treatments. Moreover, functional analysis revealed differ- ent gene onthologies categories affected thus suggesting different mechanism of action of the PCB group congeners. Acknowledgements: This study was funded by The Bladder Extrophy–Epispadias Complex and Exogenous Risk Factors (BLADE) (ISS-NIH Collaboration, Rare diseases, 2007). doi:10.1016/j.reprotox.2009.05.045