Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Drugs and other chemicals must be evaluated for their teratatological potential before releasing them in the market. One of the model test system that is used in screening of embryotoxic chemicals in vitro, is the micromass culture test. The test involves exposing the rat embryo limb cells or cells of central nervous system (CNS) to various test agents for different time intervals and estimating the inhibition of cell differentiation in these cell cultures. The technique can be best used for identifying strong embryotoxic chemicals due to its sensitivity to a number of classes of potent teratogens and insensitivity to non-teratogens.

Keywords: Embryotoxic, in vitro, micromass, teratogen, teratogenicity