Cytotoxicity Assays : Identification of Toxins and Mechanism of Action
Résumé
Toxic algal blooms are a raising concern all over the world due to their expansion during the last 10 years. Two main issues on phycotoxins are faced to prevent human intoxications: setting up sensitive methods for their detection and providing key information on their toxicity. If analytical chemistry has been largely developed to deal with phycotoxins quantification in seafood, cell-based assays are actually popping up again for targeted and nontargeted toxin detection and will benefit of high-throughput methods for cell culturing and cell response analysis. Simultaneously, ethical concern and new paradigm in toxicology emphasize in vitro toxicity testing for delivering knowledge on key events and pathways involved in cellular response. Hazard assessment also requires information on the behaviour of the toxin within the organism and in vitro assays can provide crucial kinetics data for potential modelling. As cell culture facilities are also evolving with increasing 3D models for mimicking the cell environment in vivo, it is likely that the study of phycotoxins will take advantage of the tremendous progress in cell biology.