Toxic effects of some antibiotics on rabbit kidney cells.

The cellular toxicity of some antibiotics (cephaloridine, cefazolin, cefoperazone and gentamicin) was studied in vitro using rabbit kidney cell cultures. In order to evaluate the importance of the different factors causing toxic effects, the authors studied the correlations between toxicity and antibiotic concentration and between toxicity and period of contact. The toxic effects were measured by LDH release and by neutral red uptake inhibition. In both tests, gentamicin clearly showed curvilinear dose-toxicity and time-toxicity correlation but the cephalosporins did not do so in either test. However the antibiotics tested all showed various degrees of toxicity, suggesting that their specific toxic activity on renal cells was greater than that of aspecific variables linked to pharmacokinetic behaviour.