Toxicity Assessment of Industrial Chemicals and Airborne Contaminants: Transition fromIn VivotoIn VitroTest Methods: A Review

Abstract

Exposure to occupational and environmental contaminants is a major contributor to human health problems. Inhalation of gases, vapors, aerosols, and mixtures of these can cause a wide range of adverse health effects, ranging from simple irritation to systemic diseases. Despite significant achievements in the risk assessment of chemicals, the toxicological database, particularly for industrial chemicals, remains limited. Considering there are approximately 80,000 chemicals in commerce, and an extremely large number of chemical mixtures, in vivo testing of this large number is unachievable from both economical and practical perspectives. While in vitro methods are capable of rapidly providing toxicity information, regulatory agencies in general are still cautious about the replacement of whole-animal methods with new in vitro techniques. Although studying the toxic effects of inhaled chemicals is a complex subject, recent studies demonstrate that in vitro methods may have significant potential for assessing the toxicity of airborne contaminants. In this review, current toxicity test methods for risk evaluation of industrial chemicals and airborne contaminants are presented. To evaluate the potential applications of in vitro methods for studying respiratory toxicity, more recent models developed for toxicity testing of airborne contaminants are discussed.

In-vitro cell exposure studies for the assessment of nanoparticle toxicity in the lung—A dialog between aerosol science and biology

“…Dose-response differences between two test chemicals can therefore be attributed to factors other than target tissue/site dose such as metabolism, partitioning, potency, efficacy or the characteristics of its binding to a receptor. This paradigm has been widely and successfully used to assess the relative potency of drug candidates and the relative toxicity of industrial and environmental chemicals (Padron et al, 2000;Eisenbrand, et al, 2002;Allen, et al 2005;Bakand et al, 2005). It has also been used to assess the relative potency of particulate matter, which is the subject of this study (Bakand et al, 2005).…”

Development of a BALB/c 3T3 neutral red uptake cytotoxicity test using a mainstream cigarette smoke exposure system

“…This is further compounded by the fact that there is over 30 years of testing the tobacco particulate fraction using standard, submerged culture methodologies. The testing of smoke particulate matter has generally been performed using several toxicological endpoints, such as the Neutral Red uptake assay (NRU), the in vitro micronucleus assay (IVMN), the Ames reverse mutation assay and the mouse lymphoma assay (MLA) [1-4]. These assays are consistent with many of the guidelines developed by the International Conference on Harmonization [5], the Committee on Mutagenicity [6] and, for tobacco smoke, Health Canada [7].…”

Surface water toxicity assessment by ecotoxicological andin vitrotoxicologocical assays

“…The seeding density of cells to 96 well plates was previously determined and cells were seeded at a density of 500,000 cells/ml based on the linearity range studies (cell concentration versus absorbance) previously conducted [10].…”