Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- TARGET ORGAN TOXICITY
- GENERAL AND TOPICAL TOXICITY
- REPRODUCTIVE TOXICITY
- An in vitro test for teratogens using cultures of rat embryo cells
- Postimplantation embryo culture and its application to problems in teratology
- Sub-mammalian and sub-vertebrate models in teratogenicity screening
- The use of in vitro techniques to investigate the action of testicular toxicants
- An in vitro assessment of ovarian function: a potential tool for investigating mechanisms of toxicity in the ovary
- CONCLUSION
- Index
An in vitro test for teratogens using cultures of rat embryo cells
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Introduction
- TARGET ORGAN TOXICITY
- GENERAL AND TOPICAL TOXICITY
- REPRODUCTIVE TOXICITY
- An in vitro test for teratogens using cultures of rat embryo cells
- Postimplantation embryo culture and its application to problems in teratology
- Sub-mammalian and sub-vertebrate models in teratogenicity screening
- The use of in vitro techniques to investigate the action of testicular toxicants
- An in vitro assessment of ovarian function: a potential tool for investigating mechanisms of toxicity in the ovary
- CONCLUSION
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The embryo, during its phase of organogenesis, may be uniquely sensitive to toxic insult from certain drugs and other xenobiotics. Chemicals that cause irreversible abnormalities of structure and function are defined as teratogens. The mechanisms by which teratogens cause abormalities of development must be considered before designing in vitro tests for teratogens so that methods which have an inbuilt tendency to false negative or positive classification may be avoided. Thus a test which measures inhibition of cell adhesion alone should not (and does not) detect teratogens such as 5 fluorouracil or actinomycin D which are specific inhibitors of the cell cycle (Braun et al, 1979).
A significant obstacle to determining the precise mechanism of teratogenesis is our incomplete understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of embryogenesis. Thus the typical thalidomide embryopathy remains without explanation after more than twenty years, though at least twelve different modes of action have been proposed (reviewed by Helm et al, 1981). One approach to the problem of modelling embryogenesis in vitro has been to assume that certain aspects of cell behaviour which can be observed during morphogenesis are of such paramount and overriding importance that the majority of teratogens must work by inhibition of these processes. Thus tests for inhibition of cell adhesion (Braun et al, 1979; Braun and Dailey, 1981; Braun and Weinreb, 1984) or cell communication (Trosko et al, 1982; Welsch and Stedman, 1984) have been proposed as in vitro tests for teratogens.
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- Information
- In Vitro Methods in Toxicology , pp. 339 - 364Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987
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