RTRI REPORT November 1998

Bioindicators for Environmental Monitoring

Minoru SHIMURA, Toshio HAYAKAWA, Kazuhide KIMBARA


The pollution of terrestrial environmental with manmade chemicals has been one of the great problem in the world. Once released into the environment, those chemicals are accumulated into animal tissues through the food chain. The accumulation in animal tissues reach several hundred thousands times higher than microorganisms and may cause serious problem to the reproductive power and the development of a fetus. The inhibitors for the endocrine systems are one of the examples of such chemicals and the inhibitors effect to the reproductive power of all living things. To detect and evaluate the effects of these chemicals on living organisms, a sensitive monitoring system which is based on the in vivo indicator organisms and in vitro biological reaction should be developed. There are some trials and developments on these researches in the last five years and those efforts are continuing to improve these total performance.



Copyright (c) 1998 Railway Technical Research Institute