Environmental contamination with dioxins: experience of ecotoxicity survey and assessment using wild mammalian model (bank vole C. glareolus) inhabiting forests outside sanitary zones of municipal waste landfills.

Dioxins are known to be toxic for biota at every dose and their long-term effects are reported for almost 50 years of investigations. Our researches of dioxin accumulation by bank voles living in the vicinity of several landfills near Moscow (landfills "Lesnaya" and "Kouchino") demonstrated the similarity of dioxin profiles in soil and animal samples, and an increase of highly toxic congeners' concentrations in the bank voles' bodies. We investigated also the probable public cancer risk resulting from the comparable lifetime exposure of the voles' population with dioxins' low doses, and our evaluation verified the hazard of cancer development supported by alterations in the ahr gene expression in the liver cells.