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JRC scientists develop High-Throughput Liver Toxicity Screening
Scientists from the European Commission Joint Research Centre have designed and demonstrated a high-throughput screening system to categorise chemicals based on their potential to cause liver toxicity. Their approach is based on the quantification of multiple biomarkers of effect that are expressed by HepaRG (liver) cells, treated on a robotic platform and analysed using automated microscopy.
| Contact Name | JRC-IHCP, Alternatives to Animal Testing |
|---|
The metabolic competence of this particular cell model
facilitates the detection of toxic metabolites which is often difficult with
more traditional approaches.
A set of 92 reference chemicals with known
hepatotoxic activity was tested in a battery of
high-throughput assays to allow the grouping of chemicals into
response-categories associated with different modes of toxicological
action.
As today there is no established in-vitro screening strategy to reliably identify potentially hepatotoxic chemicals, this new mode-of-action based approach - especially when supported by metabonomics and transcriptomics data - shows great promise for detecting potential liver toxicants without having to resort to animal testing.
Read more in:
M. Mennecozzi, B. Landesmann, G. A. Harris, R. Liska, and M. Whelan, 
Hepatotoxicity Screening Taking a Mode-Of-Action Approach Using HepaRG Cells and HCA, in ALTEX Proceedings of WC8, 1/12 (2012).
Photo: HTS operator Milena Mennecozzi. Copyright EU 2011.
