Establishment of an in vitro reporter gene assay for developmental cardiac toxicity

This study is based on the unique potential of pluripotent embryonic stem (ES) cells to differentiate: in vitro into embryoid bodies containing cell lineages representative of most cell types found in the mammalian fetus. However, the use uf wild type ES cells as an in vitro assay for embryotoxicological studies is complicated by the simultaneous development of various cellular phenotypes. This prevents a quantitative assessment of drug effects on one specific cell type. Here we report the effects of 15 chemicals on cardiac differentiation as determined by various specific toxicological endpoints such as morphological inspection (contractile activity), quantitative mRNA analysis and cardiac-specific expression of green fluorescent protein (GFP), used as a quantitative reporter. The data from the different endpoints have been subjected tc, a statistical analysis. and a preliminary prediction model is proposed. The results demonstrate that genetically-engineered ES cells could provide a valuable tool fur estimating the developmental cardiotoxic potential of compounds in vitro and form the basis fur automated analysis in a high-throughput system. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.