Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) depress allogeneic natural cytotoxicity by earthworm coelomocytes

Abstract

Abstract Coelomocytes of the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris caused significant spontaneous allogeneic cytotoxicity in a 24-h trypan blue assay, but not in an assay using lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release. Allogeneic cytotoxicity assays using cells from worms exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) suggest that PCBs can suppress a natural killing (NK-like) reaction. The implications of this work are twofold: understanding the evolution of natural killing (NK-like) activity and providing preliminary information on how spontaneous killing, a component of cellular immunity, may be compromised by pollutants.