PAH CALUX® (external lab)

Test organism

  • Rat cell line (H4IIE)

Detectable effects (impact)

  • The test indicates the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) via their binding to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR).

Test principle

  • In the cell line, the firefly luciferase gene as a reporter is coupled to dioxin-reactive elements (DREs), which also indicate the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Due to the specific work-up method and short incubation time, these typically only bind PAH.
  • After PAH binds to the cytosolic aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), the ligand-receptor complex binds to the DRE.
  • Cells exposed to PAH express not only proteins that are associated with the DRE under normal circumstances, but also luciferase. By adding the appropriate substrate for luciferase, light is emitted.
    The amount of light produced is proportional to the amount of ligand-specific receptor binding, which is compared to the corresponding reference compound (benzo(a)pyrene). The concentration is expressed as toxic equivalents (TEQ) or bioanalytical equivalents (BEQ).

Test duration

  • Exposure time 6 h

Relevance

  • The PAH CALUX indicates the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH).

Guidelines and literature

  • Pieterse B, Felzel E, Winter R, van der Burg B, Brouwer A (2013) PAH-CALUX, an
    optimized bioassay for carcinogenic hazard identification of polycyclic aromatic
    hydrocarbons (PAHs) as individual compounds and in complex mixtures. Environ Sci
    Technol, 47, 11651-11659.