Improved procedures for in vitro skin irritation testing of sticky and greasy natural botanicals.

Skin irritation evaluation is an important endpoint for the safety assessment of cosmetic ingredients required by various regulatory authorities for notification and/or import of test substances. The present study was undertaken to investigate possible protocol adaptations of the currently validated in vitro skin irritation test methods based on reconstructed human epidermis (RhE) for the testing of plant extracts and natural botanicals. Due to their specific physico-chemical properties, such as lipophilicity, sticky/buttery-like texture, waxy/creamy foam characteristics, normal washing procedures can lead to an incomplete removal of these materials and/or to mechanical damage to the tissues, resulting in an impaired prediction of the true skin irritation potential of the materials. For this reason different refined washing procedures were evaluated for their ability to ensure appropriate removal of greasy and sticky substances while not altering the normal responses of the validated RhE test method. Amongst the different procedures evaluated, the use of a SDS 0.1% PBS solution to remove the sticky and greasy test material prior to the normal washing procedures was found to be the most suitable adaptation to ensure efficient removal of greasy and sticky in-house controls without affecting the results of the negative control. The predictive capacity of the refined SDS 0.1% washing procedure, was investigated by using twelve oily and viscous compounds having known skin irritation effects supported by raw and/or peer reviewed in vivo data. The normal washing procedure resulted in 8 out of 10 correctly predicted compounds as compared to 9 out of 10 with the refined washing procedures, showing an increase in the predictive ability of the assay. The refined washing procedure allowed to correctly identify all in vivo skin irritant materials showing the same sensitivity as the normal washing procedures, and further increased the specificity of the assay from 5 to 6 correct predictions out of 7 non irritants as compared to the normal washing procedures. In addition, when exposed to non-irritant oily and viscous materials, tissues rinsed with 0.1% SDS generally showed increased viabilities accompanied by decreased variabilities as compared to the normal washing procedures. Similar results were obtained when testing typical in-house natural botanical ingredients. In conclusion, the use of a refined washing procedure making use of SDS 0.1% in PBS was found a suitable procedure to ensure efficient removal of greasy and sticky materials, leading to an increased predictive capacity and decreased variability of the tissue responses while maintaining its sensitivity and not affecting untreated tissues morphology and viability.

Characterization of the first coculture between human primary keratinocytes and the dorsal root ganglion-derived neuronal cell line F-11.

The epidermis can be considered as a sensory organ. Sensory neurons of the peripheral nervous system send many primary afferent fibers to the skin, creating a dynamic communication with epidermal cells. However, little is known about the functional interactions between the sensory fibers and the keratinocytes. It is therefore difficult to reproduce these interactions in vitro. We have developed an in vitro model based on the coculture of primary human keratinocytes and the dorsal root ganglion cell line F-11. F-11 cells have been classically used to mimic authentic peptidergic nociceptive neurons. We first investigated the morphological and functional characteristics of F-11 cells cultured in basal keratinocyte medium and then analyzed the influence of keratinocytes on these properties. We found that F-11 cells survived and differentiated well in this medium. Therefore, the addition of neurotrophins did not enhance their survival or differentiation. These neurons expressed sensory neuron markers and were able to release neuropeptides after capsaicin activation. We noted that neuropeptides release were obtained even at a low calcium concentration and that axonal outgrowth was not influenced by external calcium (Ca(2+)) levels. These properties were reproduced when F-11 cells were cocultured with keratinocytes, but they had no significant influence on axonal development or neuropeptide release. In this study, we describe for the first time the culture of F-11 neurons with another cell type. This coculture model in which keratinocytes and neurons are maintained in low Ca(2+) concentrations may be a useful in vitro alternative for studying and characterizing the close communication between keratinocytes and sensory neurons.

Successful micronucleus testing with the EPI/001 3D reconstructed epidermis model: preliminary findings.

Currently, the cosmetics industry relies on the results of in vitro genotoxicity tests to assess the safety of chemicals. Although the cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) test for the detection of cells that have divided once is routinely used and currently accepted by regulatory agencies, it has some limitations. Reconstituted human epidermis (RHE) is widely used in safety assessments because its physiological properties resemble those of the skin, and because it allows testing of substances such as hydrophobic compounds. Thus, the micronucleus test is being adapted for application in RHE-reconstructed tissues. Here we investigated whether two different reconstructed epidermis models (EPI/001 from Straticell, and RHE/S/17 from Skinethic) are suitable for application of the micronucleus test. We found that acetone does not modify micronucleus frequency, cell viability, and model structure, compared with non-treated RHE. Treatment of the EPI/001 model with mitomycin C and vinblastine resulted in a dose-dependent increase of micronucleus frequency as well as a decrease of tissue viability and of binucleated cell rate, while no changes of the epidermal structure were observed. The number of binucleated cells obtained with the RHE/S/17 model was too small to permit micronucleus testing. These results indicate that the proliferative rate of the tissue used is a critical parameter in performing the micronucleus test on a 3D model.