Primary cell and micromass culture in assessing developmental toxicity

Under the European Commission's New Chemical Policy both currently used and new chemicals should be tested for their toxicities in several areas, one of which was reproductive/developmental toxicity. Thousands of chemicals will need testing which will require a large number of laboratory animals. In vitro systems (as pre-screens or as validated alternatives) appear to be useful tools to reduce the number of whole animals used or refine procedures and hence decrease the cost for the chemical industry. Validated in vitro systems exist for developmental toxicity/embryotoxicity testing. Indeed, three assays have recently been validated: the whole embryo culture (WEC), the rat limb bud micromass (MM), and the embryonic stem cell test (EST). In this article, the use of primary embryonic cell culture, and in particular micromass culture, including a relatively novel chick heart micromass (MM) culture system has been described and compared to the validated D3 mouse embryonic stem cell (ESC) test.