Environmental Pollution Biomonitoring: Methods, Models, Applications and Characteristics

Dear Colleagues,

There is an urgent need for multidisciplinary approaches combining knowledge from different areas, such as engineering, environmental chemistry, analytical chemistry, microbiology, and toxicology. The aim of this Special Issue is to collect information regarding different approaches applied in order to assess the toxicity of potential environmental pollutants towards all aspects of the environment: water, soil, air, and living organisms. Physico-chemical methodology includes, among others, target and non-target approaches, suspect analysis, sum parameters, identification and monitoring of selected pollutants and their transformation products, and computational modeling. However, chemical analysis provides only a fraction of the information necessary to estimate the potential environmental toxicity of a substance or mixture of compounds. Therefore, the results of chemical analyses should be compared with the results of biological tests, and a variety of eco-toxicological methodologies should be included into global monitoring of environmentally relevant pollutants. They comprise both in vitro and in vivo bioassays. These bioassays utilize bacterial cells, animal and human cell lines, and algae, and they are based mainly on different cytotoxicity tests. Bacterial, fungal, algae, and mammalian cell lines are widely used to monitor exposure to environmental toxins. These tests are described as quick, simple, sensitive, and reliable. In vitro methods are preferred because of their lower cost and lack of ethical concerns compared to in vivo experiments. In vitro biological assays range from the simplest cytotoxicity tests, through more complex genetic engineering methods, to the most complex biomarker studies. However, the most difficult problem is still the extrapolation of in vitro test results to organisms and ecosystems.

This collection of articles will include the most relevant work in the area of environmental pollution biomonitoring with the use of the latest methodologies applied. Therefore, this Special Issue welcomes comprehensive reviews and original research papers addressing the following topics:

• Environmental pollution analysis
• Biological in vitro models in toxicology
• Chemical analysis in toxicology

Prof. Dr. Elżbieta Wołejko
Dr. Agata Jabłońska-Trypuć
Dr. Urszula Wydro
Dr. Adam Cudowski
Dr. Anna Pietryczuk
Guest Editors

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