New assays for studying in vitro toxicity

2 December 2013

Admescope launched in vitro toxicology services in September and now we are expanding service portfolio with new assays for screening genotoxicity and mechanistic toxicity. Our goal is to provide cost-efficient early stage safety screening services, to save time and money in later stages of the development.

In vitro micronucleus test (MNT)

As a new tool for genotoxicity screening, we have in vitro micronucleus test (MNT) with FACS analysis, that is considered one of the earliest in vitro tests typically applied for genotoxicity testing.

MNT utilizes actively dividing mammalian cells and detects compounds that are either clastogenic or aneugenic; causing chromosome breakage or abnormal chromosomal organization, respectively. Micronuclei (MN) can be formed if a chromosome or a fragment of chromosome is not properly incorporated into the daughter cell nuclei during cell division (mitosis). The resulting small micronuclei can be detected in the cytoplasm of interphase cells. MNTScreen is available with ChoK1 cells for short or long time-point exposure of test compound, with the presence or absence of metabolic activation (S9) to detect also genotoxic metabolites of the parent compound.

Mechanistic toxicity

We also have new tests available for mitochondrial toxicity, oxidative stress (GSH/GSSG) and caspase 3/7 activity, delivering valuable information regarding the mechanism of toxicity. The assays are conducted with HepaRG™ cells or primary hepatocytes.

The assays can also be multiplexed with our CytoScreen assays to determine the overall number of dead and viable cells