NTP high-throughput assay better classifies cytotoxicity
National Toxicology Program (NTP) researchers and their colleagues developed a real-time screening assay that allows researchers to understand how compounds become toxic and kill living cells. They hope the assay will be used to study the safety of chemicals in cellular models and determine methods that may translate into animal models.
The scientists exposed two cellular models to more than 10,000 chemicals for different lengths of time to assess the time course of toxic outcomes. These cells were evaluated using two real-time assays that measured the metabolic activity of the cells and the integrity of the cell membrane. The data were used to group the chemicals based on the time course of the observed cytotoxic outcomes. Researchers then identified important underlying biological processes and grouped the chemicals by their mechanism of action, which can be used to predict toxicological outcomes.
Previously, translating the screening of chemicals for potentially toxic endpoints between cell lines, animal models, and different cell lines was problematic. With the development of this assay and informatics methods, future studies related to chemical-induced outcomes could be much quicker and more reliable. (CN)
Citation: Hsieh JH, Huang R, Lin JA, Sedykh A, Zhao J, Tice RR, Paules RS, Xia M, Auerbach SS. 2017. Real-time cell toxicity profiling of Tox21 10K compounds reveals cytotoxicity dependent toxicity pathway linkage. PLoS One 12(5):e0177902.