The toxicity of antibiotic agents to the luminescent bacterium Vibrio fischeri

Despite their common use the fate and effects of antibiotics in the environ ment are largely unknown. These compounds may enter the environment through different pathways, resulting in the contamination of waste water or fresh water, where bacteria are most likely the primarily affected organisms. In this paper the toxicity of several drugs, reflecting the most important gr oups of antibiotics and chemotherapeutics, towards Vibrio fischeri are pres ented. The chronic bioluminescence inhibition assay with Vibrio fischeri is shown to be sensitive against many of the high volume antibiotics used for veterinary purposes and in aquaculture. Thus the assay may be a valuable t ool for an effects assessment and biomonitoring of these xenobiotics. The a vailable data for both parts of the risk assessment procedure - exposure as sessment and effects assessment - have to be regarded as insufficient for m ost antibiotics. When the available data about environmental concentrations of antibiotics are compared with their toxicity towards Vibrio fischeri, d irect effects on natural microbial communities are to be expected. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail rights reserved.