Responsiveness of a frog cell line to the AHR ligands FICZ and TCDD

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) mediates the toxic effects of environmental contaminants, such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). Frogs are very insensitive to the toxic effects of TCDD. XLK-WG cells (ATCC) were grown to ~90% confluence in RPMI-1640 media supplemented with 20% FBS at 29 degrees and 5% CO2. Cells were subsequently exposed to 100 nM TCDD, FICZ, or DMSO vehicle (0.25%) for 3 hr prior to extraction of total RNA. Study included three complete biological replicates of each treatment.