A rapid spectrophotometric test for assessing skin sensitization potential of chemicals by using -acetyl-L-cysteine methyl ester .

During the key event 1 of skin sensitization defined as covalent binding or haptenization of sensitizer to either thiol or amino group of skin proteins, a sensitizer not only covalently binds with skin proteins but also interacts with nucleophilic small molecules such as glutathione (GSH). Although GSH would not be directly associated with skin sensitization, this interaction may be applied for developing an alternative test method simulating key event 1, haptenization. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine whether -acetyl-L-cysteine methyl ester (NACME), a thiol-containing compound, was selected as an electron donor to determine whether NACME reacted with sensitizers.