Ecotoxicological soil evaluation by FETAX

The frog embryo teratogenesis assay-Xenopus (FETAX) is a powerful and flexi ble bioassay that makes use of the embryos of the anuran Xenopus laevis. FE TAX satisfies the requirements of low cost, reliability and reproducibility and, thanks to its three endpoints (i.e., mortality, teratogenicity and gr owth inhibition) can detect the xenobiotics that affect embryonic developme nt. In this paper, we have used FETAX to evaluate samples of soils collecte d in an oil-contaminated area. Embryos were exposed directly to the soil to be tested. Particular attention was devoted to provide a statistical proce dure for analysing mortality and malformation data as well as growth retard ation. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.