Establishment and performance assessment of an in-house 3D Reconstructed Human Cornea-Like Epithelium (RhCE) as a screening tool for the identification of liquid chemicals with potential eye hazard.

The objective of this project was to develop an in-house 3D Reconstructed Human Cornea-Like Epithelium (RhCE) to be used as a screening tool in early stages of product development. This study reports the establishment of the experimental procedure and the performance assessment of the model to discriminate liquid chemicals classified as causing serious eye damage/irritation (UN-GHS Category 1/2) from liquid chemicals not requiring such hazard classification (UN-GHS No Category). Histological examination of this ocular equivalent model, based on Normal Human Keratinocytes (NHK) cultured in a chemically defined medium, revealed a stratified and well-organized tissue construct.

Property characterization of reconstructed human epidermis equivalents, and performance as a skin irritation model.

In recent years, in vitro skin models combining cell biology and tissue engineering have been developed in order to replace animal models for toxicological studies and to serve as research support to better understand skin biology. This study reports the development and characterization of a epidermal tissue equivalent meant to be used to develop and to evaluate the effect of applied cosmetic ingredients, and for alternative toxicological testing. This epidermis equivalent model was characterized relative to the morphological characteristics of short- and long-term maintained tissues by performing histological studies.