Organotypic human oral tissue models for toxicological studies

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• In vitro toxicology
• Oral pathology

Background:

• Three-dimensional in vitro models of human oral epithelia are crucial for evaluating oral-care product safety and studying oral cavity diseases.
• Existing models require refinement for accurate irritation testing and pathological research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize reproducible in vitro human oral epithelial models (buccal and gingival) for oral care product irritation testing.
• To assess the utility of these models in differentiating product irritation potential and studying oral mucosa biology.

Main Methods:

• Cultured normal oral epithelial cells in serum-free medium to create buccal (ORL-200) and gingival (GIN-100) tissue models.
• Utilized MTT viability assay to determine intra-lot reproducibility (CV < 10%) and ET-50 (50% tissue viability reduction time).
• Assessed tissue phenotype, cytokeratin expression (13 and 14), and cytokine release in response to irritants and oral care products.

Main Results:

• Buccal (ORL-200) and gingival (GIN-100) models exhibited distinct phenotypes (non-cornified vs. cornified) and expressed relevant cytokeratins.
• MTT ET-50 assay demonstrated high reproducibility for both models, with significant differences in irritation response to Triton-X 100.
• The models successfully differentiated irritation potential among prototype and commercial oral care products using MTT ET-50 and cytokine release.

Conclusions:

• The developed in vitro oral tissue models provide a highly reproducible, non-animal alternative for screening oral care product irritation.
• These models are valuable tools for investigating oral mucosa innate immunity, biology, and pathology.
• The models enable efficient safety assessment of novel oral care formulations.