Testing strategies in immunotoxicology

Developing a battery of immune function assays to screen potential immunoto xic compounds has been a major issue these past years. Improving this appro ach is possible using new probes and parameters that are now available from recent knowledge on how the immune system is working (apoptosis, RT-PCR fo r cytokine mRNA expression). Immunotoxic outcome generally results in serio us adverse effects, thus it seems appropriate to evaluate this risk early i n drug development. This is especially true in the context of the emerging combinatorial chemistry techniques and high throughput screening in pharmac ology resulting in probably numerous molecules to test in toxicology. In th is case, screening for adverse effects (genotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, immun otoxicity) that may compromise definitely the development of a molecule sho uld be a help in the decision process since more than one molecule with equ ivalent pharmacological properties may be available. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.