Predicting toxicity of chemicals on developmental pathways

摘要

A method of predicting the toxicity of a chemical on a developmental pathway comprising treating undifferentiated stem cells with an agent to produce a control population of differentiated cells in a first developmental pathway; measuring the levels of at least one early stage and one late stage biomarker; exposing a test populatiom of undifferentiated stem cells to a chemical before or after treating with said agent to produce a test population of differentiated cells in a first developmental pathway; measuring the level of early and late stage biomarkers in the test population and comparing control levels of expression with test levels of expression. The method can be used for predicting changes in a cellular biomap or a developmental pathway during human foetal development.