Altered free calcium transients in pig kidney cells (LLC-PK1) cultured with penicillin/streptomycin.

The effect of a conventional antibiotic (penicillin/streptomycin) mixture on the widely used kidney epithelial cell line, LLC-PK1, was investigated by measuring growth and intracellular free calcium. Free calcium concentration was the same in cells cultured for 3 to 7 wk with ("plus") and without ("minus") antibiotics both at rest and when challenged with high (14 mM) external calcium. When exposed to vasopressin, minus cells exhibited significantly smaller calcium transients than plus cells. A similar difference existed for transients elicited by a calcium ionophore, 4-br-A23187. After longer periods of culture (> 20 wk), minus cells grew slower than plus cells but on reaching confluence (minus cells took 1 day longer) the morphologies and viabilities were indistinguishable. The finding that culture with penicillin/streptomycin reversibly modified some properties of LLC-PK1 cells, at least partly through altered calcium homeostasis, is of importance for workers using this cell model to study drug effects and raises the general possibility of similar effects on other cultured cells.