Innovative strategy based on mechanisms to substitute animal testing for ocular toxicity assessment of agrochemical formulations market in Brazil

Abstract

Considering the successful employment of alternative methods for eye toxicity assessment of products for regulatory purposes, and the recent advances in Brazilian legislative scenario, which adopted the UN GHS classification system for agrochemical formulations toxicity assessment, there is an emerging demand for strategies that allow the evaluation of such products. Based on this, the present study aimed to address the applicability of a mechanistic-based defined approach for eye toxicity assessment of agrochemical formulations. It was investigated the opacity/permeability, depth and location of corneal injury in bovine cornea, and vascular events in chorioallantoic membrane induced for different Brazilian agrochemicals using a Sequential Testing Strategy (STS). Cytotoxicity induced by the agrochemical formulations was evaluated by Short Time exposure (STE) (OECD TG 491) assay (step 1), corneal injury was investigated by standard Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability (BCOP) (OECD TG 437) followed by histopathological evaluation (step 2), and Hen Chorionic-allantoic Membrane test (HET-CAM) was used to evaluate vascular injury (step 3). The results demonstrated that the proposed defined approach enabled a classification corresponding UN GHS classification of agrochemical formulations while minimizing the use of live animals. Therefore, this approach may be useful for categorization of agrochemicals in Brazil according to the new regulatory scenario.