Abstract
Fluorination of drinking water has been used world widely to reduce the incidence of caries. Recently, contradictory results on the cytotoxicity of fluoride compounds are reported. In addition, there are attempts to use fluorosilicate for fluorination of drinking water in Korea, therefore, we tried to analyze the cytotoxicity of fluoride compounds on oral epidermoid carcinoma (KB and A253) and osteosarcoma (HOS and MG-63) cells in this study. We treated cells with 0, 10, 50 and 250 ppm of fluorosilicic acid (domestic or from Fluka, F$\_$6/H$_2$Si), sodium fluorosilicate (F$\_$6/Na$_2$Si), sodium fluoroacetate (FCH$_2$CO$_2$Na), sodium fluoride (NaF) or potassium fluoride(KF) and measured the relative cell survival by MTT assay. At the concentration of < 10ppm, no significant cytotoxicity was observed. At 50 ppm, each cells revealed different response to fluoride treatment. Among cells used in this study, MG-63 was the most resistant to fluoride treatment. Comparable toxicity data from domestic and imported fluorosilicic acids were obtained. When we compared the relative cytotoxicity of fluoride compounds against their fluoride contents, the differences in relative cell survival were smaller. Most of cells showed < 20% of survival at 250 ppm. In order to analyze the pH dependence of the cytotoxicity of fluorosilicates, the pH of cell culture media containing fluorosilicate was adjusted to 7.4 or 6.5 and the relative cytotoxicity was measured. At lower pH, about 10% higher cytotoxicity was obtained. Thus, our data suggested that the toxicity of domestic fluorosilicic acid was similar to that of fluorosilicic acid from Fluka, and the cytotoxicity of fluoride compounds was dependent on the relative content of fluoride and pH.
