Toxicity Evaluation of Hazardous Contaminants by Measuring Lag Periods and Specific Growth Rates of a Test Microorganism

미생물의 비성장속도와 지연기의 측정을 통한 유해오염물질의 독성검사

Among 31 water-born microbial strains isolated from various sites in Korea, strain DJ-4 was selected as a test organism for toxicity measurements in that its growth was completely inhibited by the presence of 668.4 mg/L of chloroform and 297.5 mg/L of toluene in the liquid LB medium whereas others did not. It was observed that lag periods and specific growth rates of DJ-4 batch vial cultures were prolonged and decreased, respectively, by phenol, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene, and chloroform at the concentrations between 3.6 and 417.8 mg/L. There changes were found to be linear with respect to the concentrations of the toxic compounds. From the first-order regression equations, 50% effective concentrations (EC50${\mu}$ for concentrations of toxic compounds causing 50% decrease of specific growth rates and EC50lag for 50% increase of length of lag periods) were calculated for each compounds. By comparing DJ-4 EC50${\mu}$ values with Daphnia LC50's from a literature for benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, and trichloroethlyene, it was concluded that microbial specific growth could be a new, fast, and reliable parameter for toxicity tests.