DEVELOPMENT AND CHARACTERIZATION OF CHICK FOREBRAIN NEURON - BASED NEUROTOXIN BIOSENSOR ON A MICROELECTRODE ARRAY
Abstract
The number and amount of synthetic chemicals in the environment has greatly increased over the past several decades and will continue to do so as thousands of new chemicals and mixtures are developed each year. At the same time, the incidence of neurodevelopmental diseases and disorders has increased tremendously, especially in children. As a result, the long-standing demand for a rapid, economical, large-scale screening-based approach to assessing neurotoxic substances in the environment has become urgent in recent years. So far, only biosensors based on rodent-sourced cells on a microelectrode array (MEA) platform show any promise for fast neurotoxicant screening, but putting such a biosensor into wide use to meet the demand would potentially require millions of animals and be prohibitively expensive in time and money. The goal of this research is to develop an MEA-based neurotoxin biosensor using a much more economical neuron resource, chick forebrains. This alternative approach has all the advantages to meet the need for extremely large-scale screening for potential environmental neurotoxic chemicals and to reduce animal use and testing costs.