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 1995-1996

Cytokine Gene Expression and Allergic Contact Dermatitis

Craig A. Elmets, MD
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

The overall goal of Elmets and colleagues it to obtain a greater understanding of the role that cytokines play in allergic contact dermatitis and to use that information to develop an in vitro assay to predict the allergenicity of new products and chemicals. Using urushiol as a prototype, the investigators have found that contact allergens augment steady state levels of several epidermal cytokine genes in vivo and in vitro. They hypothesize that contact allergens can be distinguished from non-allergens by their ability to upregulate cutaneous cytokine genes in vivo and in vitro, and can be differentiated from irritant chemicals by an inherent property of the latter to upregulate HGPRT gene expression. Reverse transcriptase PCR and in situ hybridization will be performed on cultured keratinocytes and purified Langerhans cells to address these issues.