The Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing is an academic center affiliated with the Division of Toxicological Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

 

Johns Hopkins School of Public Health

Research Grants 1993-1994

An In Vitro Model for Neurotoxicity

Joseph Bressler, PhD
Kennedy Krieger Research Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

Bressler and colleagues are developing two model systems for the blood brain barrier (BBB) in order to devise an in vitro system for identifying toxins capable of passing through the BBB. In the cell culture model, the investigators will induce astrocytes to produce protein kinase C and other factors required by brain capillary endothelial cells to express a tight barrier (electrical resistance of 500 ohms/cm2). In the second system, they will attempt to identify the mechanisms responsible for brain microvessel uptake of zinc and mercury, two metals which can cross the BBB. The microvessel preparations are isolated directly from brain and express many properties found in vivo.