HP9 Environmental Assessment, Environmental Toxicology
D137-140
1:20 PM - 5:20 PM, Thursday
() Alternative testing methods and their implementation in REACH: the power of gene expression profiling.
De Coen, W1, Dardenne, F1, Naudts, B2, Cocker, D3, Blust, R1, 1 Laboratory for Ecophysiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium2 Intelligent Systems Lab, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium3 ECOTRAC, Edegem, Belgium
ABSTRACT- The proposal for a new chemical legislation in the European Union has been criticised by both industry and animal right movements as the initiative may lead to the use of at least 10-25 million animals in tests, during a ten year period, leading to immense ethical and economical burdens. The proposed Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) system is to include both new and existing chemicals, with the aim of ensuring that sufficient relevant data will be made available to protect human and environmental health. As all companies producing or importing chemicals will be asked to present relevant data for the safety assessment of every chemical, the number of animal tests will increase tremendously. The new policy does include alternative methods, however, at present it is not clear how these methods will be implemented, particularly for chemicals of high concern, such as endocrine disrupters, for which no real alternative testing methods already exist. In the present study we will demonstrate the power of an alternative platform for toxicity testing: gene expression profiling. By studying the toxicological phenomena at the primary leasion and quantifying differential gene expression, highly informative toxicological data can be generated. Using a variety of species (from bacteria, over algae, fish and mammalian cell systems) an integrated testing approach is evaluated. Using computer-assisted modelling, we are presently challenging the predictive and discriminatory power of these technologies. The combination of such methods will generate a powerful tool in the safety assessment of chemicals. It will furthermore increase the use of in vitro data in environmental risk assessment, with a decreasing weight on animal testing.
Key words: In vitro toxicology, REACH, Gene expression profiling