NTP assesses botanical supplements with high-throughput screening
Researchers from the National Toxicology Program (NTP) have determined that quantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS) assays are a useful tool for assessing toxicological effects of botanical supplements. Developed by the Toxicology in the 21st Century (Tox21) program, a federal collaboration that tests the toxicity of various chemicals, qHTS offers a cell-based approach that can be used to evaluate dietary supplements.
Both consumption and sales of botanical supplements for health benefits are increasing in the U.S. Even though these plant-derived supplements are perceived to be natural and nontoxic, many have been associated with adverse effects in multiple reports. They also pose a challenge for hazard assessment due to their chemical complexity and variability. In this study, researchers investigated if Tox21 qHTS methods could efficiently characterize the biological activities of botanical supplements without animal testing.
The researchers used 20 cell-based Tox21 qHTS assays to measure the effects of 90 botanical substances across multiple biological responses, including cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, nuclear receptor signaling, and endocrine activity. Most substances induced measurable activities that were comparable to those displayed by the compounds in the Tox21 chemical library. The findings support the use of qHTS as a tool in assessing the biological activity of botanical supplements. (QX)
Citation: Hubbard TD, Hsieh JH, Rider CV, Sipes NS, Sedykh A, Collins BJ, Auerbach SS, Xia M, Huang R, Walker NJ, DeVito MJ. 2019. Using Tox21 high-throughput screening assays for the evaluation of botanical and dietary supplements. Appl In Vitro Toxicol 5(1):10–25.