Cryopreserved hepatocytes from rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss): a validation study to support their application in bioaccumulation assessment.

Determination of biotransformation rates of xenobiotics in freshly isolated trout hepatocytes has been demonstrated to significantly improve the performance of bioaccumulation assessment models. In order to promote this in vitro approach, trout hepatocytes need to be cryopreserved to facilitate their availability while ensuring their metabolic competency. In the present study, we obtained basal level metabolic enzyme activities for cytochrome P450 (CYP) 1A, CYP3A, glutathione-S-transferase, and uridine 5'-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase from trout hepatocytes cryopreserved for various periods of time up to three months and compared their values with those obtained from freshly isolated hepatocytes. Similarly, we compared intrinsic clearance (CL(int)) values determined in cryopreserved trout hepatocytes to those determined in freshly isolated hepatocytes for reference compounds molinate, michler's ketone, 4-nonylphenol, 2,4-ditert-butylphenol, benzo(a)pyrene, and pyrene. Our results show that cryopreserved trout hepatocytes maintained greater than 75% of their basal level enzyme activities and greater than 72% of xenobiotic biotransformation capabilities, regardless of the length of cryostorage. As a result, bioconcentration factors of the reference compounds were adequately predicted based on the CL(int) values. We simulated the condition for shipping cryopreserved trout hepatocytes and demonstrated that 24 h dry ice storage did not negatively affect the rates of xenobiotic biotransformation. We conclude that cryopreserved trout hepatocytes are suitable for biotransformation rate determination of xenobiotics in vitro, and therefore, are an acceptable alternative to freshly isolated trout hepatocytes in the application in bioaccumulation assessment.