Cell based test systems for the antioxidant response pathway

Abstract

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is the manifestation of an allergic response caused by the skin sensitization of small protein-reactive chemical substances and has turned out to be the most prevalent form of allergic responses. Many chemical substances have skin sensitizing potential, some of them present in our environment in large quantities as plastic additives. Currently, for prediction of skin sensitizing potential animal experiments are necessary, since no validated non-animal assays exist to date. In this work a cell culture test system focusing on the Nrf2-antioxidant response pathway was developed. This assay is based on a cellular defence pathway, which sensitively reacts to chemicals which bind to proteins similar to skin sensitizers. The assay therefore allows a good prediction of skin sensitizing potential. Main emphasis of this work was to improve the sensitivity of the assay to allow measurements of materials directly in contact with the skin.