연구논문 : 인공각막모델을 이용한 안점막자극 대체시험법 연구

Alternative methods to the Draize eye irritation test, such as the BCOP, HET-CAM, ICE, and IRE, are used to evaluate the ocular irritation potential of cosmetic, livelihood articles or industrial chemicals. In order to improve the sensitivity and specificity of alternative eye irritation test, we developed a three-dimensional human corneal model that uses normal human corneal epithelial cells. Our corneal tissue model consists of normal human corneal epithelial cells on cell culture inserts at the air liquid interface, differentiating to form a stratified, squamous epithelium similar to that found in the human cornea, exhibiting in vivo like morphological and histological characteristics. In this study, two laboratories have tested 20 reference chemicals using the same study protocol. The results were compared to in vivo data as well as previously published data obtained in the other three-dimensional corneal model test. Although an overall accuracy of 85% was obtained (sensitivity=100% and specificity=67%), further experiments are required to confirm and validate these preliminary results.