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Updated: Jul 19, 2026
17:28
Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Based Developmental Toxicity Assays for Chemical Safety Screening and Systems Biology Data Generation
Published on: June 17, 2015
Approaches to assessing genetic risks from exposure to chemicals
1Department of Radiation Genetics and Chemical Mutagenesis, Sylvius Laboratory, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Environmental Health Perspectives
|October 1, 1993
Summary
Assessing genetic risks from chemical exposure is crucial for toxicology. Genetic biomonitoring in somatic cells, combined with dosimetry and a parallelogram approach, can estimate germ cell damage, aiding risk assessment.
Area of Science:
- Toxicology
- Genetics
- Risk Assessment
Background:
- Genetic toxicology requires robust methods to assess risks from mutagenic chemicals.
- Genetic biomonitoring of somatic cells offers insights into mutagenic effectiveness.
- A database of human exposure studies is essential for genetic risk assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose a framework for quantifying genetic risks from human exposure to mutagenic chemicals.
- To enable extrapolation of genetic damage from somatic cells to germ cells.
- To review available data for ethylene oxide and benzene exposure risks.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing genetic biomonitoring in human somatic cells.
- Employing dosimetry (adducts) and a parallelogram approach for extrapolation.
- Reviewing data on DNA adducts, their persistence, and dominant lethal studies.
Main Results:
- The parallelogram approach allows estimation of germ cell damage using somatic cell data from humans and mice.
- Ethylene oxide exposure poses a high risk of heritable translocations.
- The study highlights the importance of dominant mutations and heterozygous effects.
Conclusions:
- A robust method for genetic risk assessment is needed to maintain the credibility of genetic toxicology.
- Extrapolation from somatic to germ cells is feasible with appropriate dosimetry and methodology.
- Further precise risk estimates are desirable for chemicals like ethylene oxide due to high heritable translocation risks.
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