Discriminating reprotoxic and non-reprotoxic phthalates by transcriptomics analysis of rat testis

REACH, the EU regulation on chemicals and their safe use, stipulates that about 30,000 chemical substances are to be assessed on their possible risks. Toxicological evaluation of these compounds will at least partly be based on animal testing. Especially reproductive toxicity is one of the most complicated, time-consuming and expensive in vivo endpoints. Introducing microarray-based endpoints can potentially refine in vivo toxicity testing. If compounds from a distinct chemical class induce reproducible gene-expression responses with a recognizable overlap, these gene-expression signatures may indicate intrinsic features of certain compounds, including toxicity. In the present study, we investigated this theory for the reproductive toxicity of phthalates.

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