Laboratory Services 

OCULAR IRRITATION ASSAYS

Ocular irritation is of great concern throughout industry, either from accidental or controlled exposures to chemicals and products. Various in vitro assays have demonstrated their value as mechanistic, predictive models for eye irritation, or to estimate mildness of formulations and ingredients. IIVS provides the following in vitro ocular irritation assays.

Tissue Construct Model

• IIVS conducts the topical application assay utilizing a three-dimensional human tissue (IIVS primarily uses MatTek Corporation's EpiOcular™ construct) which models the epithelium of the eye.
• Test articles can be applied topically to the tissue, permitting neat formulations of solid and water insoluble materials to be assayed. Potential ocular irritation from the test article is determined by measuring the length of exposure required to induce cytotoxicity. This assay is excellent for differentiating degrees of mildness among mildly irritating products. Therefore it is often the assay of choice for certain hand creams, lotions, baby products, mild surfactants, and eye cosmetics.

Bovine Corneal Opacity and Permeability Assay (BCOP)

          

• The bovine corneal opacity and permeability (BCOP) assay utilizes bovine corneal tissues obtained as a by-product of food production. Two types of injury to the cornea are quantitatively measured: direct opacity, indicating protein coagulation and/or corneal swelling; and permeability to fluorescein, demonstrating damage to corneal epithelium. This assay is used to test a broad array of compounds, and is successful at distinguishing among mild-to-moderate-to-severe products. In addition to a screening assay, it can be used for safety data with histological examination of the tissue after opacity and permeability are measured.

Human Keratinocyte / Neutral Red Release Bioassay

• IIVS uses normal human epidermal keratinocyte cultures in this ocular irritation assay intended to test dilute surfactants and surfactant-containing formulations. It is a sensitive assay that measures damage to the cell membrane; a primary consequence after exposure of the eye to surfactants. An advantage of this test are that the cells are human in origin and that they are representative of epithelial cells which cover the surface of the eye.

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