摘要

The Three Gorges Dam project is one of the biggest projects in the world. The water level fluctuation zone (WLFZ) was created with impoundment. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the ecotoxicological potential of the sediment extracts from the WLFZ and propose future WLFZ monitoring for early detection of environmental changes brought about by pollution. The investigation was performed by using cell-based in vitro bioassays to determine acute cytotoxicity (neutral red retention assay) and mechanism-specific aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR)-mediated activity (7-ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) induction assay) of sediment extracts with rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) liver cells (RTL-W1). Results showed that the cytotoxicity and AhR-mediated toxicity potential of the sediment extracts from the WLFZ in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) were moderate of level compared with the ecotoxicity of sediments from other river systems. However, according to a sediment classification system in Germany, sediments from some individual sites in the WLFZ showed strong toxicity. Compared to the results from the Yangtze River in our previous study, more attention should be paid to the aryl hydrocarbon receptor inducers in the WLFZ in TGR. The in vitro bioassays used in this study may serve as a valuable tool to predict the potential ecological hazards of the organic pollutants in the WLFZ to the aquatic organisms in some extent.