This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Exposure to hazardous chemicals can contribute to noncommunicable diseases and remains a key public health challenge. Most chemicals used in consumer products, including food packaging, lack sufficient data to determine whether they are safe.
Current testing approaches cannot effectively check for all possible health outcomes, and many testing requirements check only for genotoxicity and examine one substance at a time. Yet evidence shows that consumers are simultaneously exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals from many types of products. In a new study published in the journal Environment International, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Food Packaging Forum developed an approach to identifying chemical hazards using a selected group of in vitro bioassays.
The work is part of the co-creation project CoModHaz, led by professor Escher of UFZ. The project's goal is to develop high-throughput, animal-free methods to screen chemicals, their transformation products and mixtures for hazards. The Food Packaging Forum is a project partner in CoModHaz, along with regulators and industry stakeholders.
In the study, the researchers mapped 266 adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) to propose a practical, high-throughput approach to screening chemicals for their potential to contribute to cancer, reproductive disorders, metabolic disease, immunological disorders, cardiovascular disease and brain-related disorders. By analyzing these pathways as networks, the researchers identified biological events where the pathways diverge, converge and can play a central role in promoting different diseases. They identified a set of 15 high-throughput bioassays that could be used to check whether a product on the market is toxic and could contribute to any of these diseases in consumers.
One potential use for the new tests would be checking food packaging on the market for the chemical safety of the many often unknown (and therefore untested) non-intentionally added substances it can contain. Next, the proposed bioassays need to be validated to determine how effectively they flag known hazardous chemicals. A study testing food-contact chemicals from food packaging using this approach is already underway.
The proposed tests are a starting point that can evolve as new knowledge and testing technology become available to better protect consumers. Sarah Stevens, the study's lead author from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, said, "By translating these prioritized endpoints into in vitro assays suitable for high-throughput screening, we are making the results here actionable. The proposed panel of 15 assays could enable much broader toxicological screening of chemicals than is currently standard practice.
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