There are new
challenges for hazard and risk assessment in the
chemi
cal industry with regard to REACH legislation in Europe and related a
ctivities in the U.S. and Japan, whi
ch require the development of novel
in vitro models for the mole
cular
chara
cterization of drug- or
chemi
cal-related effe
cts repla
cing
conventional animal testing. In the frame of a European FP6 proje
ct on reprodu
ctive toxi
cology (
ct.eu" class="extLink">www.reprotect.eu), we prepared protein samples from mouse embryoni
c stem
cells differentiated into
contra
cting
cardiomyo
cytes a
ccording to the validated embryoni
c stem
cell test (EST) proto
col, whi
ch had been exposed to toxi
c substan
ces sele
cted by an expert
committee from different
in vivo categories of embryotoxi
city. Lysates were used to
carry out the following investigations: (i) identify optimal dose range
conditions in the EST that are suitable for (ii) performing a differential quantitative proteomi
c study of underlying mole
cular pathways, (iii) define
classes of substan
ces with similar proteomi
c response patterns, (iv) relate these
classes to the traditional
in vivo categories of embryotoxi
city with (v) the final goal to identify novel surrogate protein biomarker
candidates for embryo toxi
city. We found two distin
ct
classes of toxi
c substan
ces (Dinoseb, O
chratoxin-A, and Nitrofen vs β-aminoproprionitril, Meto
clopramide, Doxylamine su
ccinate, and
class="smallcaps">d-peni
cillamine) with
clear pathway-related differen
ces in their proteomi
c patterns. Most notably, different responses to
cluster 1 and
cluster 2 substan
ces were observed for Heat sho
ck protein β-1, Ras-GTPase-a
ctivating protein SH3-domain binding protein, Ran binding protein 5, and Calreti
culin, Dihydropyrimidinase-like 2 (Ulip2 protein). On the other hand, Heat sho
ck protein 8 and Fs
cn1 protein were down-regulated by all
compounds from both
clusters.
Keywords:
Embryoni
c stem
cell test; developmental toxi
cology; toxi
city biomarker; Ras pathway; differential proteomi
cs; REACH;
chemi
cals testing