Microbial toxicity and degradation test methodology: An industrial perspective

Numerous federal regulations are concerned with the release or potential release of chemicals to the environment. Testing that has been proposed under the Toxic Substances Control Act for microbiological effects and persistence has certain limitations. Improved and extremely sensitive procedures are now available to assess chemical toxicity to microorganisms and persistence at environmentally realistic concentrations. This paper discusses these aspects and presents preliminary data for a novel method based on thymidine uptake which offers promise as a routine sensitive assay for the effects of chemicals on biomass, and vice versa. The method has been shown to provide useful data about the persistence of chemicals at realistic environmental concentrations.