Mammalian Goat Blood Model: An Emerging <i>In-vitro</i> Technique for Testing New Compounds for Toxicity

Abstract

This study was undertaken to investigate the use of mammalian Goat blood as a rapid model for toxicity testing. Four (4) new materials (Niprigel-CP^Ⓡ, Niprigel-K ^Ⓡ, NiprigelA ^Ⓡ, Nipricel-C ^Ⓡ) and a known polymer, Avicel^Ⓡ pH101 were evaluated. The polymers were incorporated into erythrocytes from goat blood that had been washed with phosphate buffer solution (PBS) and incubated at 37 ^oC for 2 h. Absorbance of the incubated samples were taken at 415 nm. Percent haemolysis of the new materials compared to that of TritonX 100, was taken as measure of cytotoxicity. Results show that Niprigel-CP^Ⓡ at 0.01 %w/v, induced 411 % haemolysis, while Niprigel-K ^Ⓡ (1.0 %w/v) induced 90 % haemolysis. Niprigel-A ^Ⓡ and Nipricel-C ^Ⓡ were not toxic at all the concentrations investigated, their hemolytic activities were also found to be comparable to that of PBS and Avicel^Ⓡ pH101. The method was found to be a simple, cheap and less timeconsuming means of testing for safety and could be an alternative method of safety profiling especially in resource-starved nations.

Keywords: Goat blood, biomaterials, cytotoxicity, in-vitro testing