Lymnaea stagnalis Reproduction Test (OECD TG 243)

343. Modality detected/endpoints: This medium-term reproduction in vivo assay with the sexually reproducing pulmonate pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis is expected to be responsive to endocrine disrupters of reproduction in molluscs including inter alia to retinoid X receptor (RXR) (ant)agonists. It exposes the test organisms for less than a whole generation. It is important to note, however, that none of the endpoints in this apical test are specifically responsive to endocrine-active chemicals, and the assay will give positive results with many other substances. The lack of mechanistic assays for endocrine activity in molluscs will prevent firm conclusions about whether test chemicals are endocrine disrupters (EDs) in this taxon, but the data from the test may nevertheless be of value for classification and hazard identification/characterisation.