Novel technologies for the discovery and quantitation of biomarkers of toxicity

Abstract

Reliable biomarkers of toxicity are necessary both for the safe conduct of pre-clinical and clinical trials, and are increasingly needed for accurate clinical evaluation of treatment regimens with the potential to cause tissue injury. Recent advances in technology have added several new tools to the biomarker screening toolkit and improved the throughput of existing quantitative assays. Genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have provided a wealth of data in the search for predictive, specific biomarkers. Multiplexed ELISA-based assay systems, silicon nanowire arrays, and patterned paper present unique abilities for fast, efficient sample analysis over a broad dynamic range. Powerful integrative systems biology software and growing open-source data repositories offer new ways to share, reduce, and analyze data from multiple sources. Novel technologies reviewed here have the potential to significantly reduce assay time and cost and improve the sensitivity of screening methods for candidate biomarkers of toxicity.

State of the art on alternative methods to animal testing from an industrial point of view: ready for regulation?

“…the so-called omics technologies, bioinformatics, systems biology and computation biology (Altenburger et al, 2012;Collings and Vaidya, 2008;Panagiotou and taboureau, 2012) enable high-throughput analysis of treatment-related changes at the molecular level and, therefore, might provide a means for predicting toxicity before classic toxicological endpoints are seen.…”

Discovery of Biomarkers for Hexachlorobenzene Toxicity Using Population Based Methods on Gene Expression Data

“…If the toxin causes a response in gene expression level, microarray technology is very powerful for biomarker discovery [4][5]. The entire human genome can be contained on a single microchip, enabling us to generate complete profile of the response to toxicity [6][7][8].…”

Immunoaffinity capillary electrophoresis: A new versatile tool for determining protein biomarkers in inflammatory processes

“…Detecting these unique biomarkers has proven to have useful predictive value, depending on the biomarker, test method, and disease involved [1][2][3][4][5]. Furthermore, the incorporation of biomarkers into the drug development process will improve the understanding of how new therapies work and allow for more accurate identification of patients who will benefit from those therapies [2,[6][7][8]. Some inflammatory biomarkers are key instigators and regulators of immune responses and hold great potential as therapeutic targets [9][10][11].…”

“…[3,5,8,12,14,20,21]. Currently, high-sensitivity, high-throughput state-ofthe-art instrumentation, and methodologies are available for the characterization and quantification of biomarkers to 'visual'' observation of the inflammatory process, and one can readily follow the progression of the disease.…”

“…Electrophoresis 2011, 32, 1565-1578 determine established as well as recently discovered predictive indicators of a disease [3,5,8,12,14,20,21]. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons each instrument is based on completely different principles and protocols, and although useful today for analyzing a wide range of biomarkers, they are often expensive, time-consuming, and may be prone to yield false positive or false negative results.…”