Evaluation of cellular toxicity in Hep G2 cell and endothelial cells on different medical biopolymer supports

Abstract

There is an application driven need to identify and develop new materials for the biomedical industry and improve their physical and biocompatible properties.1,2 A combination of cell and molecular biology strategies applied to the rapid evaluation of cell behaviour in contact with materials may help to meet this objective. A group of soft and hard polyurethanes were first evaluated on the basis of cyto-compatibility endpoints Neutral red, (NR, MTT and BrdU uptake) using liver (HepG2) and vascular (endothelial) cell lines.3‒5 By definition, biocompatibility is the ability of a material to perform with an appropriate host response on a specific application. The biocompatibility of biomaterials should be evaluated by quantitative methods. Only testing methods yielding quantitative results allow the biocompatibility “degree” of materials to be assessed and compared with that observed for different materials, including reference materials.6,7 Despite the relatively extensive nature of current test procedures, they are largely non-mechanistically driven and there are considerable opportunities to improve them. Since the late 1990s there has been considerable interest in applying gene expression methodology to the toxicology problem.8,9