Professor
Past Recipient of the Distinguished Teacher Award
BSc (Simon Fraser), MSc (British Columbia),
PhD (Toronto)
Email: ncbols@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca
Tel: (519) 888-4567 x. 33993
Office: B1 366C
Research Interests
Animal cell cultures are being used for three purposes: basic research, in vitro toxicology, and biotechnology. Basic research is being done on the development of differentiated fish cell lines and culture systems. These are used to identify and study the roles of nutrition, hormones and polypeptide growth factors on the growth and differentiation of fish tissues and organs. A particular point of interest is hemopoiesis. In the future these factors may be useful in enhancing the growth and health of fish. Some of the cell lines are being used in ecotoxicology studies. In particular the toxicology of dioxin-like compounds and polycyclic aromatic (PAHs) is being investigated. Many of these projects use current recombinant DNA and immunological technologies.
Selected Publications
- Bols, N.C., Schirmer, K., Joyce, E.M. Dixon, D.G., Greenberg, B.M. and J.J. Whyte. 1999. Ability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to induce 7-ethoxyresorufin-o-deethylase activity in a trout liver cell line. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 44: 118-128.
- Schirmer, K., Herbrick, K., Greenberg, B.M., Dixon, D.G. and N.C. Bols. 1999. Use of fish gill cells in culture to evaluate the cytotoxicity and photocytotoxicity of intact and photomodified creosote. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 18: 1277-1288.
- Karrow, N.A., Boermans, H.J., Dixon, D.G., Solomon, K.R., Whyte, J.J. and N.C. Bols. 1999. Characterizing the immunotoxicity of creosote to rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss): a mesocosm study. Aquatic Toxicology 43: 149-194.
- Ganassin, R.C. and N.C. Bols. 1998. A stromal cell line from rainbow trout spleen, RTS24st, that supports the growth of rainbow trout macrophages and produces conditioned medium with mitogenic effects on leukocytes. In Vitro Cell. Dev. Biol. 35: 80-86.
- Ganassin, R.C., Barlow, J. and N.C. Bols. 1998. Influence of glutamine on phytohemagglutinin stimulated mitogenesis of leucocytes from the rainbow trout head kidney. Fish & Shellfish Immunol. 8: 561-564.
- Ganassin, R.C. and Bols, N.C. 1998. Development from the rainbow trout spleen of a cell line, RTS11, in the monocyte/macrophage lineage. Fish & Shellfish Immunol. 8: 457-476.
- Schirmer, K., Greenberg, B., Dixon, D.G. and N.C. Bols. 1998. Ability of 16 priority PAHs to be directly cytotoxic to a cell line from the rainbow trout gill. Toxicology 127: 129-141.
Contributions to Books
- Ganassin, R.C. and Bols, N.C. 1997. Long term hemopoietic cultures from rainbow trout pronephros and spleen. In: Techniques in Fish Immunology (Stolen, J.S., Fletcher, T.C., Bayne, C.J., Secombes, C.J., Zelikoff, J.T., Kaattari, S.L. and Smith. S.A. eds). Vol. 3 (2nd Edition). (SOS Publications) Chapter 19: 191-198.
- Bols, N.C., J.J. Whyte, J.H. Clemons, D.J. Tom, M. van den Heuvel and D.G. Dixon. 1997. Use of liver cell lines to develop toxic equivalency factors and to derive toxic equivalent concentrations in environmental samples. In: Ecotoxicology (SOS Publications) Chapter 23, pp 329-350, 1997.
- Ganassin, R.C. and N.C. Bols. 1997. Development and growth cell lines from fish: rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss. In: Cell & Tissue Culture: Laboratory Procedures. (Griffiths, J.J., A. Doyle and D.G. Newell eds) (John Wiley & Sons Limited, Wiltshire, UK). 23A:1.1-23A:1.9.
