[Cultured biliary tract epithelial cells/alkaline and neutral elution as a model for the detection of carcinogens to the biliary tract epithelium].

: Alkaline and neutral elution techniques were applied to detect chemical carcinogens in biliary tract cancer using biliary tract epithelial cells in culture. Since biliary tract epithelial cells actively grow in culture, DNA breaks induced by carcinogens in the [14C] thymidine-prelabeled DNA could be detected as radioactivities in the eluted fractions. Our study demonstrated that aflatoxin B1, 20-methylcholanthrene and dimethylnitrosamine induced DNA single-strand breaks in the biliary tract epithelial cells by the use of this system. Cultured biliary tract epithelial cells/alkaline and neutral elution offers a sensitive and organ-specific model for the detection of chemical carcinogens to the biliary tract epithelium.